A Spider in Arvandor
by TobyKikami
Summary: It's not always as simple as a splash of magical water. After a desperate gambit works rather too well, Selvetarm finds himself somewhere back of square one and his followers among the drow find themselves dealing with the fallout. Discontinued.
1. Family Union

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This follows up on the events of "For a Change," my oneshot of about a year ago, but if I've done my job right it should read fine on its own. For the same reason, notes on related canon aren't on here for now but will be provided on request should I prove not quite as competent as I imagine.

I began writing this before the first book of the Lady Penitent Trilogy came out, and it's extremely AU with that for reasons that are quite evident if you've read the book, though I'll probably be nicking aspects of _Sacrifice of the Widow_ for my own purposes. I hope this'll turn out to be an adequate exploration of what might lie beyond a door that appears to have been closed. 

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Forgotten Realms, which is probably a good thing for all concerned.

SPOILER WARNINGS: So far there'll be some for War of the Spider Queen, with allusions to the results of the Last Mythal trilogy and _Blackstaff_.

GENERAL WARNINGS: Looks like I've got pretty much the whole banana permissible for the rating - at one point or another there looks to be violence, profanity, sexual innuendo, reference to physical and mental fold/spindle/mutilate, the consequences thereof... plus lots of "original" characters (born, I like to think, out of necessity) and some exceedingly "human" gods. With a side of drow fangirlism and authorial savior complex.

Without further ado...

* * *

A Spider in Arvandor

**Chapter One: Family Union**

_The Year of Risen Elfkin_

"It seems to be a time of change," said Corellon Larethian. "An appropriate time for this, I should think."

Angharradh nodded. They stood at the top of a tower at the heart of their realm in Arvandor, watched two cities rise on the Material Plane, and listened to the murmur of both, a murmur of return, a murmur that gave Corellon some encouragement though he knew it was a different return they spoke of.

On the Material, return was elves bursting out of Evermeet and spreading back over Abeir-Toril. Among the Seldarine return was Fenmarel Mestarine silently walking toward the mountains with the aim of shaping his realm there. It was Shevarash following him, bow in hand. It was Eilistraee spinning in the grass, arms out beneath the moonlight.

The tower was called the Overlook for a reason. Eilistraee's realm was easy to pick out, since it was day in the adjoining areas but perpetual night there, and perpetual moonlight. He could make out her petitioners moving about in its loose confines; she was notable in her absence.

"Everyone seems to be coming back," said Angharradh. She'd been born, in a sense, the combination of three goddesses, on the day the leaving began. He hoped what caused the leaving to begin with had been remedied sufficiently.

Perhaps not _back _for this one, nor _return_. How could you return to somewhere you'd never been?

No, Selvetarm might not be returning as such to Arvandor but he could return in a different sense. Should return.

"It seems I should be with her," he said, knowing he spoke only to hear Angharradh's reassurance that this was not the case.

From the quirk of her lip, he supposed Angharradh knew as well. "There is little we could do at this point that Eilistraee cannot do already. I understand she was doing quite well with him to start with, until… If she needs us before the arranged time," Angharradh concluded, "she will call on us."

"And suppose she does not think she needs-?"

"She will not risk him for the sake of pride."

* * *

_So. This is how it happened: I followed my god. He was walking in one direction and I followed. When I blinked he started running the other way, back past where we'd started. I didn't go after him. _

_This happened more than a hundred years ago, not long after the Year of Frostfires. I changed gods like I changed clothes, shed them when I thought they asked too much. Corellon Larethian and Eilistraee haven't asked as much and I haven't left them yet, but I'm no priest of either of them which is just as well. _

_I'm no priest of Labelas Enoreth, for that matter, so don't expect a great work of art from this, some explanation as to why Selvetarm ran the other way all of a sudden. I only write what I'm asked to and maybe they can make something of it. _

_But as I said, it's been more than a century. If they haven't worked it out yet I doubt they ever will. _

(Kalannar Dhuunyl, once of Selvetarm, the Year of the Blue Shield)

* * *

"You've all been taught this, of course, so I shouldn't have to _teach _you." Adinirahc Xarann shifted his weight slightly, taking care not to look like he was fidgeting. "But it's one of the easier things to forget." He paced now, back and forth across the floor of the Grand Temple amphitheater, almost trying to fill it with his movement. It had been constructed with a view to combat and public sacrifices, not to the comfort of someone just standing there and speaking. "So as a reminder…"

Whispers from the seated Selvetargtlin of the Temple Guard, flurries of hand signs. He knew better than to try to quell them. Fingers and tongues had been fluttering for quite some time, but they seemed to move in circles, receiving little in the way of further insight but picking up speed as they went, their owners more agitated each time they prayed for their spells and still more agitated by each contact with their god when the spells were granted. It had to break, and the thing to do was try to focus the gathered energy, control it to some degree.

At least they had advance warning. It was not so long ago that the priestesses of Lolth had come out of Reverie to find their goddess no longer answering prayers. No one spoke of it any longer, at least in earshot of the priestesses of Lolth, but it had not been so long ago that they would forget it. Not in Eryndlyn, where heretics flourished in the open just over the rivers and across the central lake.

Would there be a second Silence, this one for Lolth's Champion? Adinirahc suspected it would be more of a shout.

Now he shouted, "Where do we hope to die?"

"In battle," they shouted back immediately, though most would naturally hope not to die at all.

"How do we hope to die?"

Another shout, "Against overwhelming odds."

"Why overwhelming?"

"Because we will not fall to less!"

He'd gone through this a hundred times if not more while teaching them, or most of them. They understood the pattern even if they couldn't recite it cold, and they followed it when prompted. Now for variation.

"What are we?" he demanded, lowering his voice.

The answer was correspondingly lower, not as swift this time, and definitely conflicted. He supposed they thought it a trick question.

"The warriors of Selvetarm?" hazarded Micarlin Jhalavar, near the front. Obvious but true, as were many of the answers that followed.

"Warriors."

"We are drow."

"Drow warriors."

In the back, "Lolth's meat."

"We are all Lolth's meat."

"The Temple Guard?"

"Lolth's servants."

Nadal the spellsinger quipped, "Servants of Lolth's servants."

"Lolth's chosen people."

Someone else in the back, with a distinct sarcastic tinge, "Also Lolth's meat."

Adinirahc stopped pacing long enough to say, louder again, "Yes. So we are."

This time - not a whisper, not a finger twitched.

He started moving again. "We will all die, of course. Selvetarm willing, we will die well. We will die fighting and we will take as many of our enemies with us in our last bite as we can."

Another stop. Turning in a neat circle, he drew sword and mace, crossing them in the familiar pattern emblazoned on their holy symbols. All it needed was a spider.

"I won't tell you not to forget this. I think better of you than that." Fits of muffled laughter erupted throughout the gathering. He hadn't thought it was _that _witty, and suspected nerves. "Only… keep it in mind, in the future." In the future, when whatever he prepared them for arrived. "Keep it in mind. Dismissed."

* * *

Corellon had never met the younger god, Selvetarm, his grandson.

_His grandson_. There was no forgetting that.

How much of Vhaeraun would he see in Selvetarm's face, his frame, his movement, his speech, his disposition? How much would he see of half-gone Zandilar the Dancer? How much of himself, and how much of… No. That could go nowhere of help.

What knowledge he had was mainly through Eilistraee. She'd suspected foul play from the start - it happened too quickly, she'd said, too abruptly - but Selvetarm no longer spoke to her let alone asked for her help, and there were, if not rules, quite definite guidelines.

Then, not so long ago, Eilistraee's persistence had been rewarded, or at least answered. She came before him carrying a jug of Evergold's water which she'd already acquired from Hanali Celanil. Her momentum was obvious, and Corellon's answer nearly a given.

Not long ago Vhaeraun had thrown Corellon's name to the air, surely knowing that a part of the other god would hear and listen. "Well, Father," he'd whispered. "I think I'm thinking on my own and I'm certainly living on my own. I await the way to Arvandor." He'd laced the words with implication and accusation so thick that Corellon could almost hear it as a shadow of a voice. "You said I must learn to do this," said the shadow, and Corellon had indeed said he must learn, "and so I have." So he had. "Why, then, am I still here? I don't await the way, not truly, but why is it barred to me?"

A shadow of a shadow hissed alongside it, _I don't need you _or _Arvandor, you sanctimonious liar. _

Vhaeraun always had an excellent memory for what he wished to remember. Corellon, meanwhile, remembered the rest of what he'd told his son those millennia ago and knew he hadn't lied to Vhaeraun, knew there was little if not nothing else he could reasonably have done. Nothing he could reasonably do now, if Vhaeraun did not show willing.

Selvetarm showed willing, willing to escape the Demonweb Pits if nothing else. He had replied to Eilistraee through an intermediary and expressed interest in arranging a meeting out of Lolth's sight. She'd said, "Perhaps he _does _wish to be redeemed," but they both knew the likelihood of that.

Still, Corellon's answer was nearly a given. He'd ached to say yes from near the moment Eilistraee opened her mouth, but there were other responsibilities to consider, other practicalities. He could not recklessly pursue a phantom hope when there were others who trusted him to act in their best interest. Eilistraee dealt with each consideration in turn, though faint doubts persisted beyond her ability to dispel them.

"Call it a family matter," she said at last, and that sealed it whether it should have or not.

* * *

Angharradh slipped her hand around his own and held them interlocked. He watched the moonlit patch, its edges bleeding into the land around it, in particular the place he'd seen Eilistraee step into a gate to the Abyss.

_Father? It is done. _

Attuned to the plane as he was, he felt the fluctuations as Eilistraee announced it, marking the arrival of another divine being. From the Overlook, he saw the new gate, quickly closing, and the two figures before it. He heard the scream.

_Some of the magic laid on him was supposed to stop him from coming here, _Eilistraee continued, _and it continues to wound-_

Corellon momentarily tightened his grip on Angharradh's hand as the top of the Overlook dissolved around the pair and near as quickly spun back into grass, trees, moonlight. He let go and stepped forward, ready to meet his grandson and help his daughter finish what she had started.

Something writhed in the grass of Eilistraee's realm, finishing off the scream that had been audible from the Overlook. Eilistraee knelt beside him - _him_, though Corellon's mind, to his consternation, first leapt to _it_. He knew who he must be.

Eilistraee spoke without opening her eyes. "Father…" Her eyes opened then, and her attention shifted rapidly back to her charge. "He's here. You see? It _will _be all right."

The scream ended, replaced by gasps. Long spider's legs bent in midair, unbent. They were attached to a black-glinting carapace, riddled with seeping wounds. Corellon heard himself draw in a sharp breath. He found it somewhat easier to look at the arms - all six of them though they were, clawing at the ground though they were. Easier to look at the back, as dark as the carapace it melded to, and bearing its own wounds. At Selvetarm's head, presently turned away and giving rise to all manner of absurd worries as to the face that might go with it. Those had their own associations, but nothing comparable to what the arachnid features brought to mind.

Corellon produced one gem, Angharradh another. These basic protections went off in a matter of moments, the fragments of the gem falling from his hand as he examined the established magic and cast a more specific spell to match, meshing with the current and prior efforts of Eilistraee and Angharradh. It was quick and by no means thorough, but it went some way toward blunting the effects. Complete disjunction of all of the linked compulsions, forbiddances, and penalties would take time - best to spare some of that time at the start to temper the pain in the interim.

"You saw the binding?" said Eilistraee. It was not truly a question. "He's also absorbed a demonic essence, and it's tangled up with his own. It's hard to tell at first glance, but there _is _a difference - Shh. Shh," as Selvetarm's gasps got him enough breath to cry out again. "We're here for you. We're here."

Further observation on the appropriate level revealed that what seemed to be an undifferentiated darkness indeed contained striations, grotesquely merged and twisted. He could not look at it very long, especially with even more screaming in the background, and refocused himself to Selvetarm's physical form flailing in the grass. The movement had more direction now - Corellon guessed he was trying to stand.

At the same time, Eilistraee reached out and tried to coax him to stillness. Selvetarm ignored her - he was staring toward Corellon now, and in his face Corellon saw much of what he'd feared he'd find - what was natural to find, and so all the more feared. It was not quite so bad as expected, however. Perhaps one of his few saving graces was that Corellon had never seen Vhaeraun half out of his mind with agony, and so there wasn't as much basis for a direct comparison between his son and his grandson. It wasn't _much _of a grace, but there it was.

"His weapons?"

Eilistraee looked about to ask how he could be speaking of _weapons _at a time like this, but seemed to understand the next moment - the answer itself was not as important as just the conversation. "I brought them." She waved toward a location out of Corellon's range of sight. "The two named ones."

He nodded, trusting they were there, and continued to reconnoiter his task. Strands of magic were woven together with the skill he'd expect of a goddess who'd once been Araushnee the weaver of destiny - riddled with trick knots, and loops that were by no means loopholes. Outright force would most likely end up breaking Selvetarm's mind before it broke the strands. Subtlety would fare little better, if undertaken entirely from the outside.

"Angharradh," he said, "Eilistraee. Will you keep watch?"

They nodded. Angharradh said, "Call on us when we're needed."

"Earlier than that. When you think for a moment," said Eilistraee, not looking up, "that we _might _be needed, then you call on us. Promise me that, Father?"

He promised her. Meanwhile, Selvetarm had made some measure of progress and kept at it in spite of Eilistraee's best efforts, though his struggles seemed to be slowing.

"Can you hear me?" After checking the strands once more to be sure none of them would try to prevent his next spell and further worsen Selvetarm's condition in the process, Corellon cast it and mentally repeated the question.

Selvetarm choked on another scream and managed to gasp, "Yes-"

He slipped more of himself into the link, splitting off from the physical. _Use this, if you can. It should be easier. _

_I can. _The bite to his mental voice called up even more unwanted association. _It isn't. But it's not harder. _His voice's shadow, though, was not so much a hidden message as an constant undertone - _it hurts, it hurts, it hurts…_

_I can help you, if you will help me do so. _

He heard a yell of "Agreed," followed by another fit of gasping. Selvetarm continued through the link with obvious effort. _Where's my mace, then? My sword? Did Aunt Eilistraee leave them behind? No matter, bare hands can't be that hard. Just give me a breath to get up. Or don't. Why should you make allowances? I_ _wouldn't. _Eilistraee had renewed her pleading for Selvetarm to try and be still before he hurt himself further. _Draw your sword, then. I'm ready. _

_Ready? Ready to die? _Slipping into his mind before he could stop it was the memory of someone else saying much the same thing - but while she had been scornful, clearly believing he would never carry it out, this one seemed entirely resigned to the possibility - more than resigned, actually _eager_.

Corellon was aware others would be entirely willing to take him up on the mockery of combat - Shevarash, for one - and didn't anticipate telling them of this development. He put it out of mind for now. _It was not intended in that sense._

_Then in what sense?_

_In the sense of living. In living freed from this. _

_You _don't _mean it. You can't. _

_I do. I can. _

_Oh, then you'll do your own. Should have thought of that. Why bother even asking?_

_I have no intention of repeating what she has done to you. _

_You're a good liar, _said Selvetarm, _but some shouldn't ever be tried. _

_I _do _need your assistance in undoing it. Your voluntary assistance. _

_What you're saying, then…agh! _The sudden cry penetrated, echoed through the mental link. Corellon felt the magic humming - something had triggered another penalty. _Yes. Yes, _she _hates you doesn't she, and so far I hate _her _more than I do you. Might be I'll even live to see _her _rotting in the Astral if I play it right, is that right?_

Corellon paused, and wished he could insert a swallow in telepathy. Some little excuse for delay. _True enough._

_Let me tell you something. Once you've got me - don't bother lying, not now - then _change _me. _

_Change you? How so? _Eilistraee had spoken of change, of healing and redemption, but he doubted somehow this was what Selvetarm meant.

_Make me forget what I've learned about lying and then you can do it all you like. Make me an idiot again so I'll listen. Put me to sleep and don't let me wake. _She _liked me awake, _she _liked me hating _her_, liked me knowing I'd been had, and look at me now. Use me, but don't let me know it. _Insistent and almost earnest, _I tell you this for your own damnable good. _

He thought Corellon was lying - well, here was a lie for him, or closer to one than all the other truths. _Yes. You will change - at the least, we hope it will be so. _

Eilistraee crooned something comforting and inarticulate. Angharradh spoke; Corellon could tell it contained words, but in this state they were beyond him.

_Then tell me what to do. _

He slipped halfway out of the link. His body had numbed somewhat in his absence, and movement sent almost-stars shooting through his veins. The two goddesses looked toward him. His mouth was dry. "I believe I am in need of you."

* * *

The last strand snapped away and dissipated. Corellon tilted forward but managed to seat himself with a modicum of dignity.

"It is done," said Eilistraee, tossing her words into the air for whoever qualified to pick them up. "You can rest now." Selvetarm no longer screamed or flailed. She ran her fingers over his hair, down his neck and back damp with sweat and Evergold's water.

At some point, Angharradh had separated into her component goddesses. Aerdrie Faenya and Hanali Celanil wandered off, talking quietly. Sehanine Moonbow remained for now, resting her hand on Corellon's elbow.

"Rest," Eilistraee repeated. "Rest." She began to hum the same melody.

Selvetarm looked toward him again. Closed his eyes. "Don't let me wake."

Corellon said nothing.


	2. The Test of Betrayal

**Chapter Two: The Test of Betrayal**

_To High Bloodbrother and Reaver Lord Jarrek Forar does Priestess of the Blood Daron Telclay send greetings._

_Likely you'll never see this and I've just wasted ink on greeting (as I've wasted ink on this sentence), but if I die tomorrow then I suppose this is all you'll have. If it is, consider this practice for the letter I won't have written, and a way for me to have it all down and straightened out for the real thing. It's too bad that you'll not see that if you're seeing this because it would have been much improved, trust me. _

_The job's done and we'll likely be leaving Skullport inside of a tenday. I take my fun where I can get it - Eshail frets about the damnable magic skulls and made me promise not to start fights here. Will probably break it but understand her meaning. Am bored as the Barrens. Should probably not be. _

_Very clear that we're not in Waterdeep any longer. We've even treated with a genuine drow._

_First ran into the drow around what they call Heralds' Meet, where he was looking for a job of his own and ended up getting it from us. Maybe not ran into exactly -- I'd tried divining for someone trustworthy around to help with our job. The spells pointed to him before and after, so it seems at least this one is - can't imagine who'd bother with setting this up. Goes by Lesaonar Jhalavar, which Gannisley can't pronounce for the life of him. _

_Apparently Lesaonar's a priest also. He worships a spider god, _another _spider god - he got shirty when Gannisley made _that _mistake. Said it's only the women that're clerics of the one that's usually in stories about drow. Barakat asked if his god was maybe related to that one. Lesaonar did a "hmph" and ignored him. I suppose most elves have that in common, black skin or not. _

_When he's not doing the usual elf things he's not half bad to be around, and not at all bad in a fight. I could almost pretend he was a Bloodbrother some wizard turned into a drow if he didn't yell for Selvetarm with his strikes. Oh yes, and Selvetarm is the name of his spider god, who doesn't seem so different from our Master of All Weapons aside from the obvious. Not surprising, since _they're _shield companions according to the first time I cast the spell. The surprising thing is the drow have a god like that at all. _

_As for the second divination, after we met, well from that I'm guessing we're not finished just yet and lucky me, because I'd rather not just trot back up to Waterdeep and leave him behind in the land of the stickler magic skulls. _

_Daron_

* * *

The spider moved over Krondorl's hands when he placed them to the floor before the throne, the dagger-shaped red marking on its back standing out against its carapace. Krondorl, kneeling, paid it no mind; he had little to fear from most spiders, but given the circumstances, Renthrae Vretenou suspected that he genuinely did not see.

She extended her hand, noting how Wehlzyr's fists retreated into the long sleeves of his mage robes. Krondorl immediately lifted his own hands to cup hers, lowered his head, his blood-soaked braids a dangling curtain. The daggerback spider skittered onto her hand, vanishing when it had reached about the middle - just above the vein. Krondorl reacted not a whit to this, pressing his lips to his customary spot - exactly where the spider disappeared.

Were his hands shaking? They were. She barely restrained her frown. If he were younger, it would be understandable - even commendable in a way. But he had not shivered like this for years, not since he was named Truth of the Seeker, and so it was not. Nor had Renthrae ever seen him shiver in anticipation, and she doubted such a comparatively small victory would make him start. Perhaps he _had _seen the spider, and knew what it meant for him. The Dark Mother was not above such occasional jests, and there had already been deviation from what she had read of the Test of Betrayal.

"Ten kills," she said, as she would be expected to. "I've been told they're saving one for later at the Grand Temple. A priest of one of the faerie gods."

Krondorl broke the kiss and murmured, "Does it please you, Matron Renthrae?"

"Yes. An excellent showing. Lolth surely smiles on our House." She managed her own smile.

Wehlzyr juxtaposed a nod of proper deference with a look that, channeled properly, could have vaporized Krondorl at a mile. Renthrae half-hoped it would. Yazston nodded as well; he did not glare quite as much as the older wizard. A third nod came from Shi'nayne, who declared "All praises to the Spider Queen!" with widened eyes and awed expression.

Renthrae resolved, after the current orders of business were complete, to educate her as to concealing such apparent weakness if not eradicating it. She could leave it to no one else - not with what would have to happen to Krondorl.

This time, though, Shi'nayne's expression shifted to an acceptable triumph as she repeated, "All praises to the Spider Queen, and honors to her Champion."

The meeting continued apace. Shi'nayne and Yazston took it all in, though for now both held their tongues; doubtless they thought Renthrae would toss them out if she received but one reminder of their presence. Yazston had agitated for months for this concession. Shi'nayne had not, but Renthrae couldn't very well permit her son to sit in while excluding her elder daughter - and her younger daughter, so far as that went; Ginkacha was absent only because of her studies at the Temple.

She observed Krondorl throughout. As always, he had a remarkable front, but once she'd felt him tremble it all came apart. His occasional slicing glances about the room took on the quality of a cornered animal. How long had he been this way? Since the surface raid? Her recent memory of her weapons master and most powerful judicator was all the same cursory skimming up to the appearance of the daggerback spider, and she could perceive no difference when she examined it now.

She was well aware of the usual reasoning behind the sacrifice of valued males, but Renthrae's slip was nothing so petty as excessive passion. She'd been complacent. She'd put excessive trust in a loyal servant, or as loyal as any drow could be, and the Test of Betrayal was the result. Now Renthrae wondered if he _had _been loyal as he rooted out those disloyal to her and the Spider Queen both - and even if he had, if he was still. That would explain his agitation, and it would simplify matters a great deal.

But that was ultimately immaterial. He would have to be destroyed. She had often considered the concept as she drifted into Reverie, and wondered when the time would come. Now that it had, at least the thought would plague her no longer. By now Krondorl was virtually her extra limb, but limbs could be cut off. They could be regenerated.

Krondorl made to kiss her hand again before leaving. Renthrae allowed it, focusing on a point in the air just above and behind him and calling one of her spells to mind in case, like a spider, he tried to bite her during. Of course, it couldn't be so convenient.

"Wehlzyr," she called as everyone began to head for the doors. She added a certain amount of false implication to her voice, venom beneath the surface but hardly concealed. Wehlzyr hurried back, pausing before her as the doors shut. She softened her voice. "How long has this rivalry been in place?"

Wehlzyr blinked. "I… am not sure. Since we each chose our direction. Since there have been warriors and mages."

"In either case, I believe it has gone on long enough."

Wehlzyr remained silent awhile before finally saying, "Yes, Matron Renthrae?" with unnatural calm. He had to be restraining himself, reasoning that she couldn't possibly mean what he hoped she meant. Not when the surface raid had been such a success, when by all rights Krondorl should be even higher in her eyes. In fact, this was likely setup for a quick reversal in which he'd become a smear on the floor of the audience chamber…

"I will be in my chambers for the next cycle," she said before he could consider the possibilities overmuch. "and anything I see of the Truth of the Seeker afterward should be dead. I would prefer to see nothing of him, but I understand if you wish to keep a trophy."

After a lengthier silence he repeated, "Yes, Matron Renthrae," in a quick burst. "Would an undead be permissible?"

"A mindless one." She leaned forward. "And mark this - you will be the one responsible. You alone, and all will be well. A word to the contrary, and I will not hesitate to dispose of the traitor whose petty envy led to the death of my most valuable servant - who then had the temerity to try to implicate the Matron Mother herself.

"Now be gone."

He left at a near run - likely thinking he was seizing the opportunity to be rid of Krondorl before she came to her senses. What he wouldn't know was that she'd already come to her senses… or mostly so. If she were to her senses wouldn't she be following Wehlzyr, to combine their magic? Krondorl would fall quickly to both at once. And it was _her _test. She ought to be there…

But she had sent someone to act on her behalf, namely Wehlzyr, and he would surely enlist the rest of House Vretenou's mages. She'd seen no indication that Lolth wished it done in person, none that anyone besides Wehlzyr would have to know. Outsiders would see only another slaying for station, and if she did not interfere then Wehlzyr could only gain from taking on the prestige of his fallen enemy. Another dead judicator, and no one would have to know what weakness Renthrae had to purge.

No, that wasn't all of it, was it? She'd told Wehlzyr the exact truth - she never wanted to see Krondorl again. Especially, she didn't want to see his face when he realized what she had done - depending on how literally the mage interpreted her instructions, he might go to the Demonweb Pits never knowing.

When she inquired of herself further, though, reasoning eluded her.

She stood, fingered her House insignia, and spoke the command word that transported her to her chambers. She had a long cycle ahead of her.

* * *

"Ignore me if you like-"

Tsabrak Chelanghym spun away on his heel, slamming his fists against the nearest wall. Was the rattle of the ornamental scimitar hanging further up his imagination? "I'm not ignoring you, you faeriebrained twiddler."

"You've also yet to clout me," Vuzlyn continued behind him, "for which I cannot possibly express my gratitude."

He opened his fists and flexed his fingers, wrapping one hand's worth around another and bending each set backward to tension bordering on pain. "Keep that up and Selvetarm help me I'll save you the trouble."

"Ah, now you speak before striking, which may with perseverance lead to thinking before either. That is _progress_."

Tsabrak set off down the length of the House Chelanghym training hall. He growled, simultaneously imagining how his cousin might mock _that_. Some comparison to feral creatures, he guessed - gnolls, perhaps. Bugbears.

"That didn't sound quite as orcish, either. You see?"

Close enough.

He heard Vuzlyn's frustrated sigh. "Normally I'd stay out of warriors' business, let you make your own damned mistakes and Lolth take you in her own time, but with the House gutted there's not exactly a wide selection of alternatives to be had, and I suspect your sister means to keep you weapons master as long as you're breathing."

"That's how it always is, isn't it? As long as the weapons master's breathing?" He rambled in spite of himself. "It's patrons that're swapped out, and oftentimes they're sliced up for the Spider Queen anyway."

"_Tsabrak_ - never mind, I had better take what I can get. In any case, we have a dilemma. You _are _reasonably competent given the right scope, not to mention second-strongest of our priests, and should someone more… tactically minded take it in his head to depose you that's even less power to our credit. Same goes, unfortunately, if you stay as you are. Now before you decide to rescind your thus-far amazing generosity, hear me out - how often did you hear the House soldiers sing your praises before your promotion? After? Don't you see a trend?"

Tsabrak saw it. Before, when the barracks of House Chelanghym were brimming over, the inhabitants had often smiled at him and agendas behind their smiles were at least well concealed. When he was the son of the Matron's weak sister he was a welcome participant in game after game of _sava_, tipsy laughter over wine, outrageous plans to sneak out of the House for some slumming, the rare use of some of those plans. He was a warrior, a priest of Selvetarm, a spidersword, a Talon of the Wyrm, and they respected him for it.

Then came the Silence, an attack on the vulnerable House, and his subsequent leap to weapons master even as his sister Filfaere ascended to Matron Mother - the ruling branch had been wiped out but for Vuzlyn and young Dipree, both male. It was as though he'd had to spend all of their respect on that leap; there was certainly little sign of it afterward. They edged away from him. They exchanged furtive hand signs. The undisputed _sava _master - at least so far as the House soldiers - blatantly threw a game Tsabrak had suggested as a joke. Tsabrak had occasion to walk by the barracks soon after he'd fractured the other male's wrist, and overheard him cursing several others over their terrible advice.

"But just think," one of them had said. "Lolth alone knows - well, Selvetarm also, I expect - only _they _know what he might have broken if you won" Tsabrak broke that one's jaw.

"They doubt your judgment," Vuzlyn said now. "You give them no reason to think differently. I've spoken with Dipree - over the last tenday I think you've even managed to _reduce _your nothing. We're not orcs, and we can't just go beating people to a pulp whenever we're offended. Then of course Fil - Matron Filfaere is not amenable to the idea of a discreet switch in rank, and I doubt you are either. So. Only one thing to be done for the House - light upon you," an uncharacteristic edge to his voice as Tsabrak spun back around, "didn't I just _say_ I'd rather not have you dead?"

Tsabrak lowered his mace. "You _say _much."

"And every word of it true."

"Then what _is _to be done?"

Vuzlyn didn't seem to hear him at first. "If you'd just take a moment to - _what_?"

"I admit I _do _have my suspicions so far as your gratitude," said Tsabrak, clipping his mace back to his belt, "but you're right about the rest. I'm not blind, I just don't notice right away sometimes. You were saying about the one thing to be done for the House, if it doesn't involve dying?"

"Ah." Vuzlyn recovered quickly. "It would involve some, shall we say, adjustments. So far as your judgment. Your temper. So they don't flee when they glimpse you, or else collapse into flattery. I know you hate that, and since there's little you can do so far as their instinct for self-preservation then you'll have to stop _inviting _it, agreed?"

Tsabrak looked around the training hall, empty but for the two of them. "Agreed."

He was still thinking about it an hour of talking and another few hours of sparring later, as the regular soldiers filed out and the handful of clerics of Selvetarm seated themselves to commune for spells. His first instinct when it came to Vuzlyn was still _faeriebrained twiddler_, but now it appended _twiddler_ _who's telling the truth and really isn't keen on the House falling the rest of the way. _

He clasped his holy symbol and ran his fingertips over the embossed spider, the sword, the mace.

Vuzlyn was wrong about one thing - the last tenday. Looking back, he _had _been even more irritable than was now usual for him, but this was a state of mind shared by two of the four other drow currently in the training hall. The remaining two withdrew instead, making their way deeper as their fellow clerics shouted louder, swung their weapons with greater force, lashed out at everything from House architecture to each other. He knew from his recent visits outside, to Adinirahc at the Grand Temple, that it wasn't a phenomenon limited to House Chelanghym.

"We're so many waiting spiders," someone muttered from close by. The shrill laughter that echoed around the training hall had little to do with any real humor in his words. "Never fear that hidden venom will serve you ill." Referring to one of the withdrawn ones, "Isn't that right, Brornal?"

_Hidden venom. Secret vengeance waiting to strike. _As a rule, Tsabrak had few secret vengeances. What vengeances he did manage to accumulate were generally resolved quickly, openly, and bloodily. His two exceptions were rendered irrelevant by the death of the subjects. He supposed he could do with more of them, if he had to.

Brornal said nothing. The laughter faded. Then someone else said, "Secret vengeance spiders that wait to strike," and kicked off another round, which was still going strong when Tsabrak's consciousness made contact with his god's.

When he opened his eyes, the laughter had stopped. The others opened their eyes in quick succession and stared at themselves, each other, Tsabrak himself.

It was their eyes looking back that knocked him wholly from his trance. "We're through. We're through waiting." He leapt to his feet. "How much did you make out?" They continued to stare as they stood. Behind his eardrums, the remnants of strange rough almost-song mingled with frenzied drumming, the hissing and chittering of a thousand thousand spiders. "Do you know what we've got to do now?"

Brornal had folded his hands with absurd precision. "I was sure of it when it was still _happening_," he murmured, "but it's not something you _guess _is what you've got to do."

"_I'm _not guessing about it," said Tsabrak. "Brornal, take barracks with me. The rest of you can get together the rest of the soldiers. Everyone you can get to listen to you, say what you've got to. Your best gear. Then we'll really start to bite. All us little vengeance spiders. At least now it's just Filfaere in the House for priestesses." A somewhat detached part of him noticed how quickly he dropped his sister's title. The same part wondered, as he took off for the barracks, just how many of the House soldiers Tsabrak _could _get to listen to him.

They'd used to smile at him before, and maybe he could get that back in time. It wasn't as though weapons master would mean anything now, and the _sava _master could take charge for all he cared. If they'd only listen this one time he could go to the Demonweb Pits happy. _Would_ it still be to the Demonweb now? Who knew? Who cared?

"Yes," he yelled as he flung open the door, the moment he knew he wouldn't end up yelling to an empty room, "I've been an idiot, haven't I, don't lie to me, I might've been that but _this_ doesn't depend on any cleverness of mine. You know about Selvetarm being the Spider Queen's Champion? Listen - _he's not any longer_, damned if _I_ know why, but - Selvetarm _help me_, Brornal, would you-?"

* * *

Krondorl spread the incense in the censer with movements that felt careful and controlled. They weren't, if the amount ending up on the floor was any indicator. The knowledge of that made them even more erratic. He'd used to know his own movement, absently measuring twitches and fidgets along with wide sweeps and parries; such could be of considerable significance in particularly delicate work. What _did _he know anymore?

He ignored the spilled incense for now, surprising himself once more when he realized the implications of this quick decision. He'd rarely made this sort of mess, of course, but there were others and he was fastidious about their cleanup. It had the bonus of adding a convenient period in which the subject could sweat and squirm and otherwise help tear themselves to pieces. There was no one to see this now, though. No one but his god… which tossed his thoughts right back into the whirling nexus of the problem.

He pulled himself out with some difficulty before kneeling to clean up the incense. Once that was done, he opened the packet of alchemical firelighters - at least he'd arranged the necessary equipment beforehand as usual. He didn't want to think what it would have meant if he'd found himself scrambling through drawers for firelighters. He hadn't, and so he was going to _stop _dwelling on it… any moment now…

The first lit and sputtered out. The second failed entirely, and Krondorl managed to finally banish his preoccupation with something that hadn't happened by imagining the most painful yet nonfatal ways to complain to the alchemist responsible - if he could just get himself to stop _shaking_. When the third lit, he nearly flinched before quickly using it on the censer and issuing a silent reprieve to the absent alchemist. Once the incense fumes were wafting up into his face, he seated himself on the Reverie couch. "Venorsh," he called. He'd left his myrlochar servant to guard his rooms while he attended the audience with Renthrae. "Venorsh, here!"

Venorsh was not forthcoming. Krondorl was not particularly surprised. Myrlochar, or soul spiders, commonly resided in the Demonweb Pits in service to Lolth and Selvetarm. He would be out of the good graces of at least one of them, who would have little trouble withdrawing a divine favor from an unfaithful follower.

He forced himself to breathe deep in preparation to cast. Breathe, and concentrate on his questions.

But what questions? The previous, uninitiated contact had been quite unequivocal as to what had just taken place in the planes, and Selvetarm had also strongly hinted as to what Krondorl's matching actions ought to be. All else Krondorl could think of was nothing he'd be so foolhardy as to ask. You did not question a god's sanity, and certainly not to the god's face. He was Eryndlyr born and raised, so why ought he be so taken aback by a bit more chaos?

Chaos was all well and good, but he'd still expected constants of some kind. No priestess of Lolth ever preached that the Spider Queen might be toppled by an underling, or that the recent Silence could be permanent. They could avow their devotion to chaos all they liked and _mean _it, but she was still a constant. That was a permissible exception.

His mistake, then, lay in extrapolating _more _constants from this first one, assuming that if such an unspoken rule applied to the position of the Spider Queen then it would apply to her direct servants.

Krondorl wondered whether the predictable result of shouting "How could you _do_ this to me?" to his own god would be ultimately dignified or pathetic.

"Truth of the Seeker? It's-"

He stood, leaving the incense to burn. The spell could wait. "I know, Shi'nayne."

She entered quickly and began to speak again before the door had quite closed, fingering her House insignia. "I think Wehlzyr's planning something. After Matron Renthrae spoke to him, I detected his thoughts-"

"And why would you do that?"

She stiffened, closed her mouth, and focused on a spot over his shoulder. Other members of the House said she was becoming a worthy runner-up to her mother, though they didn't dare say _successor_, and further recollection revealed that their impressions were true enough. He'd seen her at a distance walking with head high. He'd heard her speech, her choice of words slightly better than expected of a noble drow her age - she hardly ever talked to herself now. Compared to the times when she was poised and very much Renthrae's daughter, it was rare that she looked like this. Whenever he thought of Shi'nayne, though, it was such awkward moments that first came to mind.

"I wanted to know what they'd been speaking of," she said, giving her insignia an absent tweak. Thought detection was a power of the Vretenou females' House insignias, not forgetting Krondorl's own…

Actually, he _had _forgotten it. He'd unhooked it from the front of his _piwafwi _just after entering, barely aware of the action as he was with so many things now, then tossed it onto the Reverie couch, where it would remain unless one of the larger spiders around his rooms decided to carry it off. He realized that Shi'nayne would be looking straight at it. Let her wonder.

"I only caught pieces," she said, "but one of them was your name, and something about doing it alone, and there were more about wands, scrolls, that sort of thing. Wehlzyr seemed so pleased about it, I thought it could mean nothing good for you."

"Which does not explain why you tell me of it."

He tread precarious ground - more than tread, _strode_, daring it to swallow him in the wrath of a noble female. It was permissible for some sternness toward Shi'nayne and Ginkacha when the situation warranted, but this tone of derisive inquiry was unthinkable. He supposed if he was to tear away from all that and plummet into the Abyss, he might as well experience some gross indiscretions on the way down.

When she spoke again, she'd lifted her head and if she had a high priestess's scourge she'd likely be snapping it in his general direction - though he still doubted she'd be able to strike him outright. "Unimportant." She enunciated precisely, and he could imagine her breath chilling the air between them rather than warming. "Now, a _relevant _question would be - what will you do with what I have told you?"

His mouth opened. "Very good. Befitting a Matron's daughter. Work on that. It should become easier once I am no longer present to inconvenience you."

That might even be true, but it didn't stop her blurting now, "You don't mean-!"

And he didn't. He couldn't. He'd entered Selvetarm's service with an understanding of what that should mean, and why should he stay there now that the meaning had changed? He would be sensible about this. He would go to Renthrae, and she would give him one of her considering looks, and they would make arrangements, and if he was indeed the cause of Shi'nayne's behavior she could deal with it herself. He could get by without priestly ability a fair sight easier than he could get by if-

He felt the shrapnel in his back before he heard the explosion. Shi'nayne yelled, "Wehlzyr!" and Krondorl turned to find the Reverie couch tilted at an angle, one of the legs disintegrated and the surrounding area generally charred, not to mention rife with fragments of his House insignia - an insignia _Wehlzyr_ had constructed, as per the duty of the House wizard.

"Wehlzyr," Shi'nayne called out again, "you absolute _fool_. I know you can hear me. What do you think you're trying to do? My brother would have more sense than that. Any thrall would have more sense…"

Krondorl made for his sword and recited a succession of command words. His wards were already placed, not dependent on the whim of gods, and activated promptly for what good they would do. Among the command words for the wards was one to open a drawer, and a quick sweep of his free arm brought him a fistful of labeled scrolls to join those already rolled up in the pockets of his _piwafwi_. Given Wehlzyr's greater expertise in the area, an outright spell duel was not to be considered, but he couldn't neglect spells altogether.

He unfurled one scroll with a snap of his wrist and read quickly, feeling the familiar buildup of divine energy as well as the way it seemed to sink into his core before radiating outward with the last syllable. It was only with that syllable that his conscious mind caught up once more, and pointed out the implications of using - accepting! - his clerical ability.

He decided to worry about implications _after _Wehlzyr lay gutted at his feet.

* * *

"He was with Matron Renthrae-"

"Not anymore. I saw him go."

"Maybe it's something she told him to do."

"That something would be…?"

"I thought he was to speak to us first," said one of the spiderswords. "Isn't that what we're here for?"

"When the Matron says for you to jump you don't say you've soldiers waiting for you, do you?"

Tazaldyn presided over the ranks of House Vretenou's warriors assembled on the training ground, fair used to the position from the Truth of the Seeker's away time on surface raids. There were the regular House soldiers. There were the priests of Selvetarm, the spiderswords and the handful of judicators - a judicator wasn't necessarily a priest, but Tazaldyn himself was the only Vretenou mage so far to dare and survive the initiation. He noticed the whispers and hand signs, but said nothing of them.

It wasn't as though they particularly _wanted _Krondorl there. He was a direct extension of the Matron's will, and in a way they feared him over Matron Renthrae, who always seemed at one remove from the Material Plane. She did not hunt out dissent, uproot it, crush it - she had her weapons master, her Truth of the Seeker, to do it for her. Sometimes she spoke to them directly, voice and words invariably soft, but any who reacted incorrectly to this seeming indication of deeper softness caught it from Krondorl afterward. His absence, however, bothered them nearly as much as his presence.

"She… did this… _first_."

Fingers stilled. Eyes shifted.

The mass of soldiers parted around the Truth of the Seeker as he made his way through. The Matron's elder daughter trailed behind him, wearing an unfocused look akin to the symptoms of mental compulsion. Their House insignias were missing. Blood spattered them both. Krondorl's sword was drawn. His other hand had a grip in the braided hair of a severed head. The head was not in the best of condition, but Tazaldyn had time to study it as it bobbed along off the ground, to recognize what remained of the House wizard's features.

They stopped at about the center of the crowd. Krondorl lifted up the head. "She put this one up to it."

He opened his hand. The head cracked against the ground.

"I wouldn't do this to her if she hadn't done it to me first. As it is…" He addressed the closest of the younger priests - one of the spiderswords. "You. Edge of the Axe. You are aware?" The younger priest's mouth moved without sound. "Yes." The Edge of the Axe took a quick step backward, hands twitching toward his weapons and then back. "You can say it. The words of a god are not heresy." That was not what the Truth of the Seeker had often said about the words of the two other gods with their two other Eryndlyns, but nobody felt a great need to point this out. The Edge of the Axe took another step back. "I will tell them, if you will not."

He told them. Tazaldyn thought the priests were breathing easier once he had finished. With the soldiers, it was quite the opposite. Some of those on the fringes tried to slip away, with little success that he could see.

"I don't mean to sit waiting for them. You know what they mean to do. Who else means to die fighting?" A pause. "Who means to die fighting _me_?"

The Matron's daughter swayed slightly. Tazaldyn saw an end of chain hanging from one of her clenched hands and realized that she was no longer wearing her holy symbol, either.

Tazaldyn said, "If I must, I mean to do the first. The second… not so much."

After that the rest of House Vretenou's warriors began to give variations of the same. At the very least, even if some _would_ be willing to take their chances fighting him, what would they be afterward if Matron Renthrae saw fit to dispose of her most devoted servant over the actions of the gods?

"Gather your things," said the Truth of the Seeker when several breaths had passed without further statements of assent. "We'll be going to the Grand Temple. We need to pay our respects."


	3. Shield Companions

**Chapter Three: Shield Companions**

Once the day of the rest of Arvandor had bled out entirely into the Dark Maiden's night, Kalannar forced himself to slow and exchange chatter with other petitioners he encountered - else, he exaggerated to himself, he'd die a second death of his heart tearing from his chest at the sight of the gods.

His heart didn't tear, as it turned out, but it made an effort.

After all these centuries, he recognized three of them at a distance - he stopped at that distance, instinctively stepping behind a tree. Rustling from either side showed others had the same idea as him. They nodded at each other and continued to watch.

Kalannar knew who the fourth god had to be, and remembered enough so that he wasn't overly shocked. Still, he looked down to find his fingers digging into the bark.

Kalannar hadn't meant to. He remembered that as well now. Who ever meant to? But his sword was shattered by a blow that ought to have snapped nothing sturdier than glass, and the spiders no longer answered him. What was he supposed to have done, demanded an explanation from a god?

He remembered that and he remembered why he'd wanted to forget. In Arvandor, after his first death (the memory of which still, mercifully, eluded him), they'd granted that to him. Now one of them had given it back, in time to witness this and know the meaning of it.

_You were a priest, right? One of his?_

The green had slipped underneath Kalannar's eyelids and stayed in his eyes when he blinked. Two fingers pressed against his brow. _That's _something _for a mortal. Guess now I'd better ask you if you want that back. Seeing as it's yours, and now'd be a good time to remember it what with Eilistraee looking to get him out - tch, wasn't supposed to tell you that, was I? Ah, no crying over spilt. Anyway, you don't have to if you don't want. _

… _now, do you want?_

* * *

The glasses met with a clink and wine sloshed onto Erevan Ilesere's wrist, down the cuff. He put his glass aside to lap at the red trickle. "What I remember," he said between licks, "is that he took everything so _seriously_."

Sharess giggled. "Yes, he did, didn't he? Swear on Evergold. It got worse when he was older… but it _would_, wouldn't it?" She stretched out on the couch opposite, her feline aspects evident though she wore her blue-skinned Zandilar-shape for the occasion. "'s the usual way. Which is too bad."

Erevan nodded vigorously and finished off with an exaggerated tongue movement that had Sharess doubled over and tumbling off the couch, then returned his attention to the wineglass. It was still close to brimming, and on a whim he thrust his face over the top, trying to see how much he could drink before having to tilt the glass.

"_Erevan_!" Sharess kept on giggling while sprawled on a conveniently wine-colored carpet. "That's for _cats_. In _bowls_. Only _I'm_ allowed to. Well, I suppose Nobanion too, not that he _would_… "

"Oh, you _had _to say 'not allowed,' didn't you? You _know _what that does to me." He propelled himself further and ended up with the rim of the glass practically sealed around his mouth.

"Look what you've done to your tunic," Sharess mock-chided him after he'd managed to empty the glass.

He shrugged. "I'll magic another one. What about your frock?" At some point, the slit up the skirt of her shimmering gown had expanded from its already-impressive length.

"I'll magic it back together. 's less trouble-" Her smile widened. "-that is, if you've the _talent_."

"The _talent_!" Erevan feigned outrage. "I've got enough talent in _this finger_ to nick Helm's sword right out of his scabbard. I've got enough talent to trip Beshaba. I've got enough talent to turn Bane's armor purple. With pink spots. I've got-"

"But," Sharess intoned solemnly, "have you got enough talent to get that out of your tunic?"

He scrutinized the wine stain. "I _like _it. It's… wossname… aesthetic. I'm sure Hanali would agree, if she weren't off… ah!" He fumbled for the bottle. His coordination improved once the bottle was in hand, his pouring aim perfected with long practice. Soon he was lifting another glassful. "To Hanali Celanil, and Sehanine Moonbow, and Aerdrie Faenya." Sharess nodded. Smile. _Clink_. A gulp on his part, a sip on hers. "And to Eilistraee, of course, my _etriel_, whose dancing rivals yours…"

"_Pardon_?" But she touched her glass to his anyway. "To Eilistraee for, what, the fourth time? To Eilistraee who can come close to me, possibly tie on a good day."

"Wouldn't it be night, for her?"

"Whatever you say. On a good night."

Gulp. Sip. "I maybe ought to go help-" It was his turn to tip to the floor, putting an end to that particular impulse. "Funny word, _etriel_," Erevan informed the carpet. "Noble elf-sisterI mean, considering. I always wanted her for _my_ sister - well, not _always_, but now I can't see me doing anything unsisterly. Unbrotherly. Not with her. Not _really_. But I guess you wouldn't know about that?"

"Ah? Know about what?"

Erevan opened his mouth but the answer had already flown away. He blinked and let his head fall.

Her voice lowered, became even throatier. "You don't think _I'm _a sister of yours, do you?"

"… no?"

"Good."

"Oh! Yes! Just remembered. Got to do one for that dead priest of his I ran into on the way." He shaped his hand around a wineglass. One promptly filled the empty space. "Well he wasn't a priest anymore, strictly speaking, seeing as he was with us and all, but if she pulls it off I bet we'll get that changed up. 'Yes, I damn well want,' he said." Erevan laughed as he rolled sideways.

"Wanted what?"

"A private audience with you? His old god back? My _excellent _tunic? Should I know?" He lifted the glass, reclining on the carpet. "To… wossname… his dead priest."

"Of course. To his dead priest."

The wine conjured up with the glass turned out to be swill, but Erevan drained it anyway and continued to roll around on the carpet, enjoying the view, until he abruptly grimaced. "Trees of Arvandor, I'm turning old and witless."

"And here I thought elves aged with grace."

"That's mortals. They get whisked off before the first thousand, usually, so they haven't got time to _really _go like I seem to've done."

"How so?"

"Well, it's just come back to me that I've still to do for _him_. I've done for his priest but I haven't done him. Unless I did and forgot, but that's just as bad." He began to wish up more wine. Sharess grabbed his hands, breaking his concentration, then did it for him. "To… ah…"

"To Selvetarm, isn't it?"

"I think so? To… what you said… and to his not taking everything so seriously. And to his taking after you. And to Shevarash not putting an arrow through his eye. And to Shevarash not having reason to put an arrow through his eye."

Sharess grimaced as she combed out a section of her hair. "Oh, _him_. So… glum. Not even interesting like Ilmater. Must you bring him into this? At least Ilmater can _smile_."

"Must I?" He contemplated this. "Not really. I could have said, let's say-" He lifted the glass once more. "To whatever Eilistraee tries on him working, and to me dragging them both over here for a revel. Make up for lost time. Is that better?"

"Much better."

"How much better?"

"_This _much."

"Oh-"

She drew away abruptly, smiling. "Maybe you oughtn't. You wouldn't want to be tuckered out for the festivities they'll be having in Arvandor, would you?"

"You ought to know-" And she probably did. "-it's not like eating. Not for me. I won't be _stuffed _with it or anything. It's more like… practice. Arvandor'll be that much better after a go."

"I suppose that means I'll have to hold back, won't it? Can't have Arvandor looking shabby after this."

"You think a lot of yourself, don't you?"

"Name me someone who's got better reason to be."

* * *

_They've just asked me to write some more. They said it doesn't have to be about that time - it can be something general, to keep it known or at least that much easier to know. They said whatever little rituals or whatnot I took for granted back then could be informative long after I'm done rotting. _

_To that end I should probably write who "they" are. They're mainly the followers of Eilistraee. I knew a group of them back before, and we met from time to time, near passage points to the Underdark. We were getting on well and Selvetarm seemed to like our meeting them, then. After, not so much. _

_I came to them with some of the others, after, and since then they have been very _(the author has repeatedly emphasized the "very") _kind. Very _(with further extensive emphasis) _considerate. I'm very _(also emphasized, though to lesser degree than previously) _grateful, of course. _

(Kalannar Dhuunyl, the Year of the Blue Shield)

* * *

_Jarrek,_

_No sense in the whole greetings for this little chit. Right now I'm off to meet Lesaonar at one of the taverns in the Lower Port I think it's called. Priest of Garagos's shield companion or not, he's_ _still a drow - as Gannisley's pointed out repeatedly - and this is Skullport, so if this is my last letter then avenge me. _

_Daron_

* * *

Lesaonar couldn't say he'd dreamed of this - couldn't say he'd even considered it for more than half a breath. The advantage was that he hadn't expected anything of it, and therefore wasn't disappointed. Lolth's Champion breaking away from Lolth was the sort of thing that would have come with impressive expectations, especially considering the reasons for Lesaonar's exile from Eryndlyn, but given that exile what did it matter? He had already broken with the Spider Queen.

Not to say he wasn't somewhat disappointed that all those uneasy Reveries and communion for spells had built to little more than a kobold's squeak for him.

It would be much more than a squeak in Eryndlyn, of course, and he could smile for a time as he imagined it - at least until it reoccurred to him that he no longer had anything to do with the place.

The human priestess had yet to show. He'd chosen a table with a good view of the door and ordered an ale. It proved generously watered, which suited him - he hadn't come here for the intoxication potential per coin.

He'd stashed his gauntlets close at hand, in a pocket of his old _piwafwi_. The _piwafwi _itself was pulled back to display his nearly-as-old holy symbol against the red of an equally-old arming coat, which was starting to go at the elbows. He'd gone more than ten years wearing the holy symbol slipped beneath the newer, black coat. Not so many cycles ago he'd polished it for nearly a candlemark, as well as done what he could for the elbows of his red coat. It had been his favorite, and once he put his arms through the sleeves he'd quickly remembered why.

He'd even braided his hair in the old way, though there hadn't yet been an opportunity to blood it since washing it - well, no opportunity up to his standards. There'd been quite some blood from a human mauled in the alley beneath Lesaonar's window, but he'd always derided that sort of acquisition in Eryndlyn and he wasn't desperate enough to start now and have all those fights over his opinion invalidated.

He looked back on years of whispering to Selvetarm with each kill instead of shouting. He looked and he didn't laugh at himself, but he did raise an eyebrow. This was Skullport, and no contingent of Lolth's priestesses would be dragging him off for blasphemy - well, they might theoretically, but it certainly wouldn't be as easy for them, and lack of hiding was not nearly as suicidal as Lesaonar had thought it would be back when he'd acquired a more inconspicuous arming coat, started hiding the holy symbol, and appropriated the surname of one of the clerics who hadn't left - a new given name, he'd thought, would be too easy to slip with.

There remained a degree of _streeaka _to this openness, but Lesaonar had done with fretting over it. He absently pressed his hands to the cold tankard and wondered if the Tanor'Thals, foremost agents of Lolth in the city, might bother moving against one Selvetargtlin priest. One stray Selvetargtlin with nothing better to do than sell his sword to a group of humans on the say-so of their priestess and her divination.

The priestess in question entered then, and Lesaonar was rid of any lingering tactical qualms about his choice of arming coat. An opponent going for bright colors would first turn to Daron's tabard, cloak, and boots. Each of her steps after entering was straight toward him, and he imagined the red of their clothing making contact across the tavern with the efficacy of a spell of sending.

She smiled, lifting a hand. He lifted one of his own in reply, and once close enough, Daron reached out and grasped it. She let go quickly, as Lesaonar belatedly realized the tankard had left his hand chilled and moist.

"Good to see you," she said, her face guileless as usual.

He gave the near-full tankard a push in her direction. "Likewise."

She nodded, ignoring the tankard, and continued to the bar. There, he heard her say, "Another of what he's got."

Lesaonar took another sip and wondered if he could credit this implicit refusal to her sense or her pride. Some of this wondering must have shown, because the first thing she said on returning was "I can't very well get your pay back out of you in drinks."

Her words could indicate pride, but they also made good cover for sense, and ultimately did nothing for his wondering. He shrugged back, deciding not to argue.

"Just so you know," said Daron, clunking her own ale onto the table and pulling up a chair, "we might be staying longer."

"Are you?"

She nodded. "Eshail and Barakat're talking over another job. More coin, and all that."

"Ah."

"I'll get the others to take you on again, if you like. At least for information. This lot seems to be more drow, you see, and - what's wrong?" She reached across the table to take hold of his hand again. He let her, and it rested in her grip. "Oh. That. Well, if any of them think to stick you in the back-" She indicated her sheathed sword. "-I'll stick them in the front." Her grip tightened. "Swear as your shield companion. And the others are already on watch, seeing as… well…"

"As they're drow. Yes. As well you should be."

Lesaonar regretted his tone even as he spoke the last word. Given what he knew of her and her surface god, she might well leap at him in a rage - that would provide some excitement in the short run, but in the long run he'd once again be left alone with his boredom.

Though in the long run, wouldn't he be alone regardless? Daron made no secret of her dislike of Skullport, the other three probably felt much the same way, and they wouldn't stay here taking on extra jobs forever. She'd afforded him plenty of diversion already - he shouldn't expect too much more.

When he'd just managed to convince himself that all told, Daron Telclay would not be so great a loss, she spoke again. "Right. As well I should be. As well I _am_, so I'm asking your help with it."

Several angry shouts came from the occupants of the table next to theirs. Daron turned, craning her neck somewhat, and Lesaonar discreetly extracted his hand from her grip.

"None of us know that much about your folk, of course," Daron continued once the shouting had finished. "Not that you'd got _two _spider gods, for a start."

"Truth be told," said Lesaonar, "most of us don't know that either. They know Selvetarm exists, but most think he's just a servant of… the other one. He isn't."

At least he wasn't _now_. Lesaonar had to smile - the revelation wasn't entirely worthless. He could tell Daron the exact truth. He could chant gleefully to himself that his god was _not _a servant, his god was _not _some outsize tanar'ri groveling before a jealous goddess, his god was a god in and of himself and _not_ merely the Spider Queen's sword arm…

He would be a good bit more gleeful if there was someone else to chant it to - someone who would have any idea of what it meant.

"I'm not quite sure what god this lot has," she said, "but I don't think it's Selvetarm, especially taking what you say into account. They don't look very spidery, Barakat said."

"There are plenty of other gods of ours that aren't."

"We don't know so much, as I said. But I know you."

He had the impulse to contradict her on that point in quite definite terms, and acted on it, but what came out had gone inexplicably soft. "What makes you think that?"

She considered this for a time. The mutterings at the other table, fairly calm since the shouting, had taken on a certain edge.

"You're like one of ours," she said at last. "If you were the sort of drow we hear of most of the time, then you wouldn't be a priest of my god's shield companion, would you? Not if you didn't at least understand about battle, and I know you do."

Lesaonar thought she assumed too much there as well. He certainly understood battle itself, but he'd heard her discuss strategy with the others and from that he doubted he quite understood her own view of it. All her talk of honor, trust, and never retreating seemed typical incomprehensible surface thinking - not to forget Daron's confidence, derived from the teachings of her surface god, that proper focus guaranteed victory. The Selvetargtlin did not guarantee victory. Instead they spoke of death in service - though in service to _what _was variable - and of powerful last bites.

_We will die in battle, against overwhelming odds, because we will not fall to less…_

Simple combat, now, slash and dodge and parry and kill - so far as that, Lesaonar supposed they might be the shield companions she spoke of.

"Where was I?"

"You were saying how you knew me."

"Ah. So I do, and I know you know more than us about this. Wouldn't want to slip up, like Gannisley did with your god. These ones might not be quite so accommodating." She extended her hand.

"Aren't you going to consult with the rest of them?"

"Why? If they get shirty about shares, there's still mine to pick from."

He shrugged, and they clasped hands once more. A period of silent drinking followed. Lesaonar could make out enough of the words from the table nearby to catch the gist - something to do with a wager - and waited for them to get back up to shouting again.

Daron stared into her tankard. "You don't actually like it here, do you?"

"If I didn't, then there are plenty of other taverns."

"No, I mean _here_. Skullport."

"There are worse places."

"Of course, and there're better ones." She leaned forward, elbows on the table. "I've been reading over what I got for each divining, and I think we can get passage for one more when we go back up. What say you?"

He was more aware than ever of the renewed argument. "You mean up to the surface," he finally managed, aware of both his gape and the idiocy of the statement. Where else could _up _mean? The Undermountain?

She nodded. "We can travel evening and night, 'til you're adjusted."

A shriek of laughter drifted toward his throat. "I-"

"You'll have me to vouch for you, and help you settle if anyone makes trouble." She smiled as she said the last.

"Are you-"

"You'll have equal share, of course. Give me another tenday with the others, and-"

"Are you absolutely _certain_ that's what your spell said?"

This stopped her for a moment, and when she started talking again there wasn't quite so much momentum. "It didn't up and say, 'Daron, there's this drow you should take to see the sights in Waterdeep,' no. Nothing so specific. But it did say something about my helping you after you helped me - with the job, I suppose - and it's hard to see what else it _could _mean. _Was _hard. Could be to do with those other drow, now that I know about them."

"Could be, indeed."

"Yah. Probably is, but you see, I had to be sure." She kept her eyes matched up with his. "I don't like the thought of just-"

The first of a new set of shouts sounded then, followed by a flung tankard. Daron turned, and it winged her hair; Lesaonar saw her abrupt grin as it hit the floor and clattered. "What was _that _for?" she shouted back, knocking her chair back when she stood.

Lesaonar thrust his hands into his _piwafwi _and began to don the gauntlets tucked inside, simultaneously observing the group. All humans, and mostly concerned with each other at the moment; fists and more tankards were already raised, and Lesaonar glimpsed at least one knife. One of them, however, turned toward Daron, swaying slightly. Lesaonar couldn't imagine how long he would have to have gulped the tavern ale for that result. "And - and what makes you think it's got anything to do with you, you dumb son of a-"

"Oh, that does it." But her grin was widening as she reached for the two tankards on their table. "Wits so sodden you can't even tell woman from man - well, I guess there's less chance of you trying to grub at me, so _that's _all right."

"Wha - I never-" He rallied quickly, even as the rest of the table went into a grapple. "I've got better standards'n to slobber after leftovers of a weedy little elf - and a _drow _at that! Do you pretend it's your own pretty dolly, and does that make up for it stabbing you after you gap your legs?"

Lesaonar grimaced as he checked the knuckle blade on each gauntlet. Some of the rest in the tavern had already made for the door. Others placed bets.

"At least drow know how to treat a lady," said Daron, hefting the tankards. "But you wouldn't know better, would you? Truth be told, this is almost dishonor. Garagos would almost be ashamed to have a Priestess of the Blood taking advantage of an addled drunk."

Lesaonar stood as Daron heaved the first tankard.

"Almost!"

Half of the rest of the table quickly turned from their dispute, hurrying to aid their comrade. A pair were too concerned with throttling one another to notice. Another bolted. One seemed briefly torn between going after Daron or Lesaonar. Lesaonar made the decision for him.

They'd learned at the Grand Temple never to give or receive quarter - Lesaonar had long ago decided that it didn't count if it was ultimately giving quarter to himself, and accepting his own gift. Excessive trails of bodies raised the chances of an encounter with the Skulls. Though he could no longer claim to care as to whether or not the Skulls would appear on the scene, his habitual movements in this situation were to wound rather than kill. He was silent accordingly. He glimpsed Daron, both tankards long gone, wielding a chair in lieu of her sword - apparently she had the same idea.

He lashed out with one fist, the gauntlet's blade lacerating fabric and flesh, at the same time evading a grab at his hair. Soon the exact order of things disintegrated into a whirling blur, distinct shapes forming up just long enough for him to land or dodge a blow - the memory of which was quickly swept away in the whirl on the edge of a full-on rage. Thoughts came staccato or else as long winding wisps.

A certain form cleared, part of him recognizing it and lunging. His mace had come out at some point, perhaps even as he saw, and then he was swinging it - it was almost leaping from his hand and one-two-three-four… too long, far too long… The breath he'd been saving throughout the fight burst forth. "_Selvetarm_ -"

The human crumpled. The face was a lost cause, but he noted other, telling details. It was the one at the start - the one who'd taken Daron for a male and called Lesaonar a weedy elf.

He looked up, disoriented by the abrupt return to clarity. Daron was holding her own against the last, still grinning. The bartender looked on, deadpan, and Lesaonar briefly weighed the benefits of offering compensation for the stained floor. Another human applauded idly. A half-orc dropped coins into another's outstretched hand. Another drow stood against the wall beside the door.

Arms crossed, hands apparently empty. _Piwafwi_ as plain as they came, without visible House insignia. Beneath that, a red arming coat - _another _red arming coat - and chain mail, both bearing spatters of dried blood. Sword sheathed at the hip. The _piwafwi's _cowl pulled up halfway over hair in a pinned braid - he remembered the style as fairly popular with soldiers who valued practicality but preferred not to chop it short or try to convert it to a weapon. Lesaonar had often worn it that way himself before he came to the Grand Temple, and often as not in Skullport.

The other drow glanced about the room, lip curling, before he pulled the cowl fully up and over and ducked out into the street.

"Ay, Lesaonar."

He turned back. Daron had the last of them on the floor, groaning, and was currently looking over the belt of the corpse. "Anything take your fancy?"

He considered it. Coin pouch was the first thought, but Daron already had that in hand. The knife? He had better ones already, as was likely the case with most of the equipment.

Then he looked back to the floor, becoming aware of the weight of his braids. He knelt, dipped a hand in the puddle, and began to blood them.

* * *

"You didn't have to do that," said Daron at another Lower Port tavern.

"Neither did you."

"Well," she said, "at least I didn't _start _it," and laughed at some private joke.

"I'd say you did," said Lesaonar. "He probably meant to throw it at one of the others. Not surprising, considering his state. I can't believe you wouldn't have realized that."

It was a statement of fact, absent of the usual inflection; he _didn't _believe she wouldn't have realized that. She'd obviously meant to have a fight; the dead human had simply facilitated.

Her tone in reply was equally mild and fairly unperturbed. "I didn't mean for anyone to get killed."

"So you didn't," he said. "You started it, but he finished."

"You were, what, defending my honor?"

"Defending _mine_. Such as it is."

"When I was younger," she said, "I used to start fights at the taverns in Scornubel. The Red Shields never believed it was me." She seemed vaguely indignant at the recollection. "There'd be a bunch of men, see, and there'd be a girl - there'd be me - and they'd only tell off the men. The men didn't tend to argue, either. How would that come out with drow?"

Lesaonar considered this. "In Eryndlyn? We'd have believed it, but nothing more would be _done _about it, except the punishment for the males would be harsher. That's how it would be in the west, at any rate. The eastern plateaus followed other gods - they'd look at it differently."

"Ah. Interesting thing you did with your hair."

He nodded, touching his fingers just over one of the coagulating clumps now decorating the ends of his braids. "It can make a useful last resort when it's hardened, if you can swing your head fast enough."

Daron regarded them further and let out a whistle. "Mine's too short for that, I'm guessing. I could maybe spike it, and cut off pieces for darts, but…" She laughed again at that, Lesaonar briefly joining her. "I might try it, anyhow. I knew some Bloodbrothers and Bloodsisters who just about took baths in it - this wouldn't be so inconvenient, and it would have the same sort of effect."

"The main problem," said Lesaonar, "is it gets off after a while, and of course you do have to wash."

She nodded. "That was a problem of theirs, too. They didn't mind so much, though."

Lesaonar made a noncommittal noise and tried not to picture it.

They drank. The ale here was of marginally better quality, Lesaonar surmised, though most drow still wouldn't come within a hundred paces of it if offered anything short of a reasonably powerful magic item.

Which reminded him of the one he'd seen actually _inside _the last tavern - a fairly low-ranked soldier by the look of him, but still as out of place as if in the middle of a tribe of kobolds. Drow in Skullport mainly frequented the Heart, and Lesaonar frequented the Port and Trade Lanes for much that reason. Did the other go there to lord it over the underraces? To satisfy some odd craving for bad drink?

The door opened. Said drow slipped in. At least now he'd have some manner of answer to _that _question.

"Lesaonar Pharn."

Daron looked up. She'd certainly recognize his given name.

"You were a member of the Temple Guard, last ranked as Steel of the Blade. Adinirahc Xarann thought you promising. You were exiled from Eryndlyn years ago," the other continued in their mutual tongue, his arms crossed once more, "not long after the Time of Troubles, due to blasphemous disregard of the Spider Queen in conjunction with failure to ingratiate yourself with the masks or the slimes. This failure can be explained by your choice of god and your choice of worship of him. In your misdirection you denied the one who was above him, who created him, to whom he owed absolute fealty." The connection with Lesaonar's old memories was so strong that for a moment he thought it might be a female voice, a high priestess's voice, reciting his transgression. Then he said, redundantly, "I know who you are."

"This isn't Eryndlyn. _I _know whatever the Spider that Waits might owe, he's not paying it anymore. You're not with House Tanor'Thal, are you? Didn't anyone tell you you'd have better luck in private?"

"Look at you," said the other drow. "Knocking about with _iblith_. Drinking their swill with them. Don't you ever want more stimulating company? Mistress Braekathra went scouting in the Undermountain a couple of years back, and she sent word about the rest - wiped out by _iblith_, weren't they? I suppose after that, you rethought how low you could sink."

"If you're going to try killing me," said Lesaonar, "tell me you've at least the sense to bring friends, not forgetting some means of _trying_ to evade the Skulls if they choose to show at this."

"Of course I did," said the other drow. Meanwhile, Lesaonar had calmed enough to delve beneath his outward arrogance. In a chorus silent as hand sign but no less revealing, his tells screamed _No I didn't_.

"And if I might have your name," said Lesaonar, "so if you give a good showing, I can in return try and bribe a myrlochar into letting you out of the scut work in the Demonweb Pits. You needn't worry about my bribing one the other way. It'll be bad enough down there as it is."

Daron let out a laugh. When they faced her, the laugh multiplied a hundredfold. "Reaver's bloodriver," she got out at last, her head thrown back in a position that would have rendered her quite vulnerable if it wasn't for the gorget at her throat, "the way you both _turned around _that way, and the looks on your faces-"

The other drow's arms had dropped, and when Lesaonar looked to him he saw what they had concealed. Inscribed onto the breast of his chain mail was a crossed sword and mace, with a spider atop it.

"Oh," said Lesaonar. "_Oh. _You're a fine one to go on about blasphemy, what with-"

"What with what's happened." His arms came up again. "Yes. I _have _got friends here, so you know, and my name is Urlryn Mlezzir. I don't suppose you've any idea why the _iblith _bitch was_-_"

Daron cut him off. "Spell of translation. And here I-"

"Yes, and here you thought we knew 'how to treat a lady.'" Urlryn seated himself. "Well, listen closely. I've already helped _treat a lady _once this cycle, and I'm not averse to doing the same to a mouthy human. Now then," to Lesaonar, "shall we continue?"

"After you apologize to the Priestess of the Blood," said Lesaonar, enjoying this far too much than was probably wise. "For your own good. If you can quote that, then you know she's not much for that… treatment."

Urlryn stiffened. "You must be-" Lesaonar nodded in her direction, and he finally grit out a passable one between his teeth. Lesaonar considered insisting he address her as Mistress on top of that, but finally judged it overkill. "_Now _will you hear my offer?"

"If that's what you want to call it. Go on."


	4. Running Amok

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Yeah, it's been a while. Nearly a year and a half, actually (the time does fly). Anyhow, I'm putting up this chapter, and the two after it, because someone indicated they might enjoy it. This fic is discontinued; short of an act of gods these next three chapters will be the last. Apologies to everyone left hanging, and here's your warning.

* * *

**Chapter Four: Running Amok**

Selvetarm's eyes felt open, but when he tried to blink he realized they wouldn't close any further. When he realized he could open them instead, he immediately forbade himself from doing so.

So many called on him at once, and he thought he might be levitated by their voices, thought he saw the movement, but he felt nothing of the levitation. He fulfilled requests for spells without thought. He heard a good chunk of the rest of what they said, as well, but he couldn't seem to move a tongue to reply and wasn't particularly inclined to try harder.

Blood ebbed and flowed around him and he supposed he was in it now. He could see it around him and ahead and behind, a curving band, and he thought, _This is Garagos's river, isn't it? Supposing he sees me, what do I say to him?_ assuming he could say anything.

Meaningless dreams. They would end when the sleep deepened, or if they didn't he wouldn't remember them which was the same as them ending wasn't it? If they wouldn't end it exactly as he would have liked then at least he could float, unfeeling, and that couldn't be so terrible all possibilities considered. He had to stop moving sometime, everything had to stop moving, and after that…

Eilistraee had tried to calm him, once. They sat in abstractions of forest clearings not in Arvandor never in Arvandor and she clasped his hands and asked him first to concentrate and then to relax but it wouldn't carry him away, or he wouldn't let it carry him, and she'd given him that look, the one that had always made his gut clench as if she'd driven his own sword through it, and he promised he would try harder and she said it wasn't needed, it was all right as it was, it was just - and he knew it was because there wasn't enough of _elven _in him for the Reverie, not _true _elven, and he said so and she said no it was quite all right because plenty of mortals and gods did perfectly well without it and it was just - well - it was just…

* * *

Shardax glanced around the shop. "It mostly seems to be around the Grand Temple, I gather," he volunteered. "That and the Houses."

"Seems and is." Drada adjusted her smock and made for her stock of crossbow bolts. "It's usual business, except no Selvetargtlin in for anything since. No obvious ones, but they do tend to be obvious. I suppose Micarlin would be mixed up in it, but she's long gone. Are you sure I can't interest you in shatterbolts?"

"Sorry. With what I've got planned, they'd go shattering beforeI'd got to use them. But I'll have an extra lot of prepped, and one of deadbolts if you've got them."

"If I've got? Oh, have I _got_. Zhaunil," she called to her brother. "Special. Deads."

Zhaunil nodded, but instead of heading into the back of the shop he only took a few paces before opening a crate and retrieving a carefully wrapped bundle. Shardax raised an eyebrow as he read the runes on the crate, and raised it further as he read those on the crates stacked below and around it. The Jhalavars seemed to have taken a good bit of their "special" merchandise into the front. He could see hand crossbows and ammunition attached to the belts around their smocks. "Can't be too careful, can you?"

"Can't be too careful," said Drada as Zhaunil reached them with the bundle. "We mightn't be Selvetargtlin ourselves, but we've demonstrated these things for years. We ought to know _something _of it."

Shardax already had the usual asking price in hand, along with that for his additional requests, and they quickly made the swap. The crossbow bolts were tucked into their designated sections - deadbolt, prepped, and magical - even the regular ones were set apart from the lot he'd picked up from a shop in the northeast. Drada seemed fairly sensible, as the westerners went, but she _was _still a westerner - and her one daughter was a priestess in the Temple Guard.

"It's not even the right month for an anniversary rampage," said Drada. "I have to wonder. I truly do."

"So do I," said Shardax, utterly sincere.

"Micarlin told me she'd seen the avatar, back then."

"Did she?"

"She did. Her and Ang Pharn's middle boy. She kept going on about it before they ran off to the Temple. They certainly didn't do _that_ for love of the Spider Queen. Now what was his name?" she addressed Zhaunil. "Ang's middle."

"That'd be Lesaonar."

"Yes, Lesaonar."

"Almost made mage," said Zhaunil. "Nearest to it of her boys. Best focus." He sounded vaguely irritated at the thought. "I think he made cleric instead."

"One less place for that crafting magic of yours to go, ah?" As he recalled, Zhaunil prided himself on the magic he worked into the Jhalavars' merchandise - he'd developed several innovations on the process that would be no doubt fascinating to other crafting mages, and several times he'd been on the brink of throwing these innovations into Shardax's face. This atypical desire to share knowledge was the main thing from which he hung his memory of Zhaunil Jhalavar.

Drada laughed. "You're a sharp one. I always tell him, better value if nobody knows. He can charge for lessons once we're set up."

If this shop wasn't set up, Shardax didn't know what was. Time for a digression. "So this Lesaonar's in the Guard with her, then?" He couldn't see how useful the answer might be, but not every word of his could be in pursuit of useful information or else Drada would probably catch on and start charging by the question. Besides, it wasn't as though he minded conversation.

"Was. There was that business not long after…"

"Ah. That business."

"So, then," said Drada. "Who's that with you? A friend?"

Shardax stifled a groan. He'd almost managed to forget Phyx. "No."

"Ah." Her smile widened slightly. "I see." She probably didn't, but Shardax felt no need to point this out. "Well, I oughtn't be keeping you."

Phyx was still standing outside the Jhalavars' shop where Shardax had left him. Shardax wished he could deliver a telling-off, but Phyx didn't deserve one quite as much as Shardax would have liked. He'd left behind his knee-high galoshes - which would have been an obvious mark of an inhabitant of the oft-flooded southeast - not to mention made a passable effort at braiding up his long hair in a fashionable wizard's style, and put some kind of illusion on his too-pale eyes to make them appear a stronger red.

"We'd best be going now," he said. "Got what I came for," he continued unnecessarily.

Phyx nodded once.

Shardax lifted his hands and signed, _Ghaunadaur got your tongue? _Then he started walking, angling his pace to press gradually deeper into the western plateau. If only the mage's reason for silence _was _that he'd sacrificed his speech to his god. At least then Shardax could have drawn up some measure of amused pity.

Several steps later, Phyx spoke from behind him. "No."

Shardax shrugged and said nothing more. Talking to the follower of Ghaunadaur gave him the feeling of pitching coins into a bottomless pit. It was as though they'd chosen the most irritating "partner" they could for him. How was he to get anything done with this one hovering about?

It wouldn't matter, really, what he could or couldn't do. The higher-ups of both religious factions would be sending out their own, elite agents to gather the real information independently. They'd nod and smile at each other, point at the partnered operatives, and pretend it was something more valuable than a token gesture toward their alliance.

But just because it was meaningless didn't mean the consequences would be any less for Shardax if he botched.

He patted the most obvious of his hand crossbows. At least he might be able to take out some spider-kissers on the way.

* * *

If Paedriel turned his head just so, he could make out the body of the drow priestess sprawled on the floor in the flickering light of the braziers. The scalpel she'd been using at the time lay some distance away - she'd tried to stab the other drow with it, and that was where the other drow had tossed it after plucking it from his forearm. Rings were torn from her fingers, an amulet from around her neck, cloak from around her shoulders, the pockets emptied.

Then the other drow had tossed the body away as he'd tossed the scalpel, and walked out of the room with what he'd appropriated. He didn't seem to have noticed Paedriel.

There were worse places to be left. His limbs could rest somewhat while stretched out on the long table, and horizontal as he was the chains wouldn't bite at his wrists when he tired. She hadn't got that far into the session, so there wasn't so much blood. Neither was there so much outright agony, or the deceptively mild stinging that could abruptly transmute into fire underneath his skin with the errant twitch of a muscle. Not so much.

He wondered why he hadn't managed to die yet. Fine priest of Sehanine Moonbow he made if he was so scared of death that he stayed in _this -_

Forget that. Ignore that. He'd always been a dreamer, so they'd said. If those dreams kept him from peace in Arvandor for now, he should at least get them to bring him in between.

He turned his head back, focused on what he could make out of the ceiling. _Sehanine help me…_

Dream. Transcend. Wait, was that - not _those_ ones, not _those_, he'd quite enough of drow already-

Footsteps.

Ignore them. Dream. Better yet, Reverie. He'd once expressed a pity for _N'Tel'Quess _because on top of everything they had four fewer waking hours a day than the People, and he'd been a fool.

"Look," in the language of the drow. "There's even a faerie laid out for you, princess, while you wait. I'll have to take _these _out, naturally, but I'm sure you can be creative."

An indecipherable mumble in reply. Footsteps away, and back several times as things were dragged out of the room. Darkness as the braziers went. Steps away a last time, and the door closed.

Silence, for a time, followed by a softer pacing around the table. The "princess," presumably.

"Oh," she said. "Tazaldyn missed this, looks like." Further silence. "I forget, you'll be blind." He felt something thin and smooth press against the palm of one hand, roll along it to the base of his shattered fingers; he guessed it was the scalpel again. "Can you feel it? No, that's a stupid question. You can't very well answer with that in your mouth; you probably don't know what I'm saying, and you're probably not even awake. You've probably walled yourself up into a corner of your mind. The Truth of the Seeker told me about cases like that."

Paedriel held still, eyes open in the dark, tongue pressed against the gag she'd reminded him of. It had been placed there to further deny him spells. Now it helped deny himself uncalled-for laughter.

Steps away. "Ah-" Shifting, voice lowered. "Insignia - where is it - _ah_." She raised her voice. "This was Mistress Myrahel. Fourth House. By the by, mine was third. Though it may not be much longer, what with the Truth of the Seeker and Wehlzyr…"

Abruptly, what must be the scalpel blade was pressed to his throat. "You want I should use this?" After several breaths, the blade went away again. "No, then I'd just be in here with _two _stinking corpses. I doubt Tazaldyn missed Mistress Myrahel like he missed this. I suppose I'm to look at her and… contemplate my fate, or some such thing. You can contemplate it along with me, if you like - I can't imagine yours is so much more pleasant."

If she knew he was conscious she'd likely gouge out his eyes in spite. Mustn't laugh… mustn't laugh…

"I wonder," she said, "if I had to drink her blood, would that help thirst, or is it too sticky? You wouldn't happen to know that, would you? Move if you know what I'm on about - do something."

He did nothing.

Paedriel only knew how close he'd come to Reverie when her whisper jolted him from it. "He was the one who was _there_, you see. And he was male, so I wasn't as afraid I was of Matron Renthrae. He was always there, and he was there then, talking to Wehlzyr's spirit and finding out what he'd been about. I'd been the one to come there. I'd come there thinking to help him… it fit at the time."

Another few rounds about the table, her speech continuing all the while. "I think I should have been more afraid of him."

* * *

_You'd think they would have chosen a better time to go off, _Shardax thought with not a small amount of bitterness as he observed a group in the kit of the Temple Guard. _Say, back when their keepers had lost their venom. I suppose it's a good sign that they've figured it out at all, but leave it to spider-kissers to be so absolutely inconvenient. Years late, and the most fantastic opportunity in _millennia _short. _

The pair worked their way toward the Grand Temple, skirting around the edges of street skirmishes that arose with increasing frequency. They'd yet to be spotted in an obvious way. There were plenty of fleers in the vicinity, including a considerable number who crept along the edges, and as long as they made out to be headed _away _from the Grand Temple, or at least trying to be, they seemed to be doing all right.

Cloaked in invisibility backed up by his _piwafwi_, Shardax edged along a nearby House's fence. Phyx, meanwhile, walked relatively openly, imbued with a spell that would allow him to keep track of Shardax as well as any other invisible creatures. Shardax had warned him not to keep too close of a track - invisibility was essentially useless if any watcher could conclude location by line of sight. He'd been further irritated by Phyx's offhand nod in response, and resolved that if he were caught as a result his dying act would be to outline the Ghaunadan in faerie fire.

Another lot came down the alley - five, Temple novices from the look of them. House insignias ranged from Xelvek, the seventeenth, all the way to a Vretenou in the lead. He knew House Vretenou mainly for the Matron's pet judicator - nobody with sense wanted a Vretenou job, not after what said pet did to the last spy he'd caught. The spy had been valuable enough to spend effort in resurrecting, but his soul expressly refused to leave Ellaniath and some of the most powerful clerics of the northeast shook their heads in resignation. Pledged reward for that particular Selvetargtlin's trapped soul climbed.

Lolth's servant bitches had only just been patting his head over the latest raid, and wouldn't they be regretting that now!

"Ginkacha," called one of the novices. "Mightn't we slow?" Most of the rest did in response. The Vretenou, meanwhile, continued to move, nearing Phyx, who had promptly changed direction on their appearance.

"Ginkacha!" yelped another.

Likely-Ginkacha ignored the others, addressing Phyx. "You!" Phyx turned, arms folded. "Where are we, male?"

Shardax readied a crossbow as he continued to edge along. Phyx, as expected, said nothing, but continued to walk backward at an impressive speed.

She walked after him just as quickly, the other novices trailing some distance behind her like young rothé. "I asked you a _question_, male."

Shardax decided then that she had to die. Granted, she was saying it to Phyx, but it was the principle of the matter. Deadbolts would be overkill, he decided, and selected one of Drada's prepped instead.

"Ginkacha." The Xelvek this time. "Dark Mother, it's not worth it. My House can't be that far. Matron -"

"Bother your Matron," said Ginkacha without turning around. "They've probably already overrun your excuse for a House. _I'm _going to _mine_. _After_ I pay back this insolent commoner."

He found a good position a ways down the alley, lifted the crossbow, and took aim. Phyx was turning his head, sweeping the width of the alley; he gave no sign of seeing what Shardax was about.

"Is that so?" The Xelvek again, her outrage apparently breaking whatever hold she'd had on her tongue. "What with all of Vretenou's oh-so-powerful Selvetargtlin, it'll be overrun eight times over at least-"

Shardax fired the crossbow. His invisibility dissipated, but that mattered little at his current vantage. At the same time, Phyx finally opened his mouth and whispered, "Vanish." He promptly did just that. He'd stashed a wand in his _piwafwi_, Shardax guessed, or perhaps some other magical device.When properly positioned it would be a matter of moments to take hold of it and utter the command word.

The Vretenou opened her mouth and dropped. Two of the novices, including the Xelvek, fled down the alley. The remaining two stared about, drawing their weapons - dagger for one, mace for the other.

_You do runners, _he signed toward where he'd last seen Phyx. Then he set about reloading. One of them had cast an enhancer, while the other pulled out a wand that turned out to contain a divine spell of power normally verboten for students, but it was still over quickly.

He was slicing the Vretenou's throat when Phyx returned, visible and stuffing what looked to be one of the _piwafwis _into a small pouch at his belt; it was already more than halfway inside, and the top of the pouch was absurdly distended. Shardax managed to conceal his shock at the sight. He shouldn't be surprised, really - he hadn't exactly told of his own backup stash, nor was Phyx exactly talkative. The Xelvek novice walked alongside the mage, her eyes oddly placid. He signed, _Charm spell? _

Phyx nodded. Shardax shrugged and began the routine body frisk. If he wanted a souvenir to toss to Ghaunadaur that was his own problem.

"He's the one."

Shardax's head snapped up. Phyx had turned to the Xelvek, and continued to speak while indicating Shardax. "Go on." The Xelvek smiled and hurried toward him, nearly tripping over the body of one of her compatriots in the process.

He leapt up, delving for one of his hidden crossbows as he did. "What's your game?"

"No game," said the Xelvek. Her voice, too, was unnaturally light. "My friend said you could help me about what's happened to the Grand Temple, if I could tell you what I know. What are you doing there?"

"Nothing," Shardax said hurriedly, bringing out and folding his arms. "Gave me a start, is all." Behind her, Phyx had got in the rest of the _piwafwi _andwas unhurriedly sorting through the bodies. His face was obscured, but Shardax would have bet a dragon hoard he was smirking - assuming that he smiled like a normal drow.

She looked down at the Vretenou. "Oh. Good. I never liked her. What can I do for you?"

"You can start by telling me what you think I ought to know." At least it was conversation, of sorts.

As they left the bodies in the alley, he became aware of Phyx's gaze. _It's not as though there's _so _much to be found out where we've been going, _he found himself signing. _May as well pick off some spider-kissers while we're here. _As usual, Phyx hadn't said anything on the matter, but he couldn't help but feel as though the mage thought it with irksome force.

_Supposing it does help the Selvetargtlin, _he went on. _What of it? They're a small lot all told and I'm fair sure they'll only be getting smaller. The Spider Bitch needs her followers taken down constantly - they're always spawning, and she's got enough whole cities already. It's a plague across the Underdark. Every bit helps. _

Phyx smiled. Just as Shardax expected, it was a sort of drifting, off-kilter thing that matched his weak eyes - or would have, if those eyes had been showing their true colors. "Strange bedfellows."

Shardax could just imagine what they had for bedfellows in the southeast. "You're not getting anywhere near _my _bed, that's for certain."

* * *

The Ilythiiri burned forests.

Selvetarm didn't remember when he'd learned that - it might have been one of those things that a god of war just _knew_. He certainly hadn't seen them put torch or spell to wood, and his was not a name they had called, not so long ago. They would have called out to his father, or the Elder Eye, or _her_.

He had a form now as he scuttled, an anachronism, between the trees and took breath after breath of smoke. It wasn't as though it could kill him.

Others were being killed in the meantime. They called to him and they died and they waited on the Fugue Plane. _There they'll stay_, whispered a stray thought as it wisped past,_ until they lose patience and sign on with baatezu, or until Kelemvor loses patience and claps them into the Wall. _He was somewhat surprised by this thought. He'd been aware, intellectually, of the god of death as well as those who'd preceded him, but _she _hadn't liked to be reminded and so he often forgot them in self-defense.

Perhaps _she _would manage to take them in - _Kelemvor_, came another thought,_ you had better feed them all to Kezef before you let _her _have them. _But Kelemvor couldn't hear, and what did Selvetarm care what happened to the dead when he'd just sleep through it?

_Zanassu_, came close on a hundred voices from the Apostolaeum in Lost Ajhuutal. He balanced on the roof, on the great stone webbing between the minarets, circling round to the stone spider of a dome at its center. His blood dripped from open wounds but vanished before it struck anything. _Zanassu? _He sensed the worry of the aranea. They reached out for spells and they got them; they were not told the same things as the drow, no need for it, but they noticed _something_. And they ought to. The last of the Abyssal lord they called for was well and truly dead, ripped out and burned away in divine fire.

_Kalannar, drop it. _More past echoes - these from a time he'd lived. _Drop it before it cuts something that can't be fixed-_

_Too late! _screamed the priest. _This can't be fixed! _And the others were prying his hands open, shaking out the bloodstained fragments of his sword, and the priest screamed and screamed far louder than the cuts on his hands would warrant. _Selvetarm -_

_Spider Queen, _yowled a promising young soldier in the service of one of Eryndlyn's middling Houses. _I didn't mean to, I thought it was in your service, I didn't think, have mercy on this stupid male - _New legs forced themselves out from the soldier's sides now, and he rocked and wailed in the same spot where he'd lifted his head and proudly accepted the honor of serving as the avatar of _her _Champion.

_Shut up, _Selvetarm heard himself say. _You've done nothing. This is nothing. _No need to know that he hadn't expected this either. One of _her _contingencies, he supposed, just to make sure he wouldn't escape his present form by body-jumping.

He made good on his command himself, held the body with its mouth closed through the rest of the transformation, but the avatar's soul continued to flail and gibber. _A drider for my blasphemy - oh Lolth - a drider, I'm a drider-_

* * *

"I suppose he _is _right, now."

Ilztrysn looked over to Micarlin at her words. "Pardon?"

She leaned against a wall, looking upward, blood dripping from the ends of her freshly-treated braids. She was wiping more blood from her sword as she spoke. "Do you remember how they were all marching out of the city? Like they were going off raiding instead of going off into exile. He never told _me _anything of it - I swore I'd pay him back for that."

"I suppose I do remember," said Ilztrysn, once more checking his spell components in their pouches. Nervous habit, weakness he knew he should be rid of if he ever hoped to make judicator - that is, if anyone had a hope of making judicator now. "I remember that one lot went looking for them, right after the Silence, and they said-"

"That lot was _idiots_," said Micarlin. She used the term with a certain glee, which he supposed was understandable given how many times it had been applied and implied toward her. What female but an idiot would serve the servant over the goddess herself? "Tell him, Nadal."

Nadal was in position to watch the street, taking a drink in preparation for further spellsong and killing cries. "I met with Xandra when she got back," he said, lowering the waterskin, "and I got out of her that there weren't nearly enough bones to account for all of them. According to her, Brae - Mistr - _Braekathra_," he fumbled most uncharacteristically over the priestess's title or lack thereof, "decided the rest got themselves killed on the way."

"Dhairn," Micarlin put in. "Essra. _Lesaonar_. 'Got themselves killed,' she said."

Ilztrysn decided now was not the time to question her assessments of either Mistress Braekathra's sense or the exiled Selvetargtlin's collective combat ability.

"Once I've the power, I mean to sendto him," said Micarlin. She straightened, stowing away her cleaning rag. "But he did turn out right, didn't he, with all this?"

He listened to the shouting elsewhere on the Western Plateau - some of it drifting toward them. "It certainly looks that way." He signed, _Should I try the wizard gambit? _

Nadal signed back, _May as well throw dice on it. _

Ilztrysn proceeded to swap places with Micarlin, standing between her and Nadal; both of them drew their weapons. Ilztrysn, meanwhile, obscured the ornate hilt of his sword and summoned the image of a fumbling young mage - one barely competent at the craft, who only continued to pursue the arcane because it was supposed to be the path to power and joined the Temple Guard for much the same reason.

Imitation of that mage came easier than he would have liked, but holding it proving satisfyingly harder as whoever it was neared and calm swept outward from his center, preparing him for his burst of motion. He mouthed his battle cry - it might be taken for his reviewing the syllables of an unfamiliar spell. _Selvetarm. Selvetarm._

* * *

_Drider. Drider. _

He went for another dream-walk around the Apostolaeum roof. He walked through the Forest of Mir. He walked the shifting paths of Undermountain, past dusty bones. He walked among the ruins of Dolblunde with its sixty-six and circled around to witness a sparring match. He walked along the catwalks of Skullport. He walked across the three plateaus of Eryndlyn, walked over fallen heretics - _whose _heretics? He thought he knew, but when he went to retrieve the answer he didn't find it, and when he looked at the bodies again their identifying marks warped  - half-masks to tentacle rods to blood-soaked braids and back roundabout, black to purple to red.

_It's just a big drider really, _declared one that wore a mask for the moment, and even more blood bubbled down its chin and crushed throat. _A toy of the Bitch. We can take that. In the name of the Masked Lord - _

_They are her outcasts, _said another, its own mangled fingers brushing against the obsidian sphere on a chain about its neck. _All falls to the Elder Eye, eventually. These especially so. _

_The Dark Mother is great - _and this one was quite inconsistent with the setting. It looked like it had been female, and its fingers curled around a spider amber. - _for she finds use even for her disgraced children. _

"You deluded -" In retrospect, he expended rather more profanity - not forgetting violence - on them than he ought to have bothered with. They were dreamforms, after all, even less alive than the Revenancer's zombies which at least existed.

Now here was one of the Revenancer herself, veils rustling, rings glinting. _At least she never made me god of her _driders_, in all but name_. The real goddess would be more likely to list all that had been done to her in its stead, along with what terrible retribution she'd eventually wreak in return, but this one pressed her ringed hand to her mouth and failed to suppress giggles of the same high pitch as her song and her shrieks. _If it were in name they might have organized, and that would spoil it for her. This way she gets her mortals running about the Underdark spreading chaos, and she gets her own little god to toy with on a more direct level. _

"Not now she doesn't!"

_Oh, then may I presume you wear that form because you _like _it? _

"Yes," he hissed. It was a dream, which helped somewhat, but he doubted his ultimate response would have been so different in reality. "And I _don't _any longer, so I _shan't_. Watch me."

She watched. Selvetarm thought of two arms, two legs, all that would go in between, molten metal and flowing water. He went over the images again and again, burning them into his mind in hopes it would carry on to his dream-body.

He assiduously didn't think of metal cooled and solidified into shackles, nor of frozen ice. He _especially _didn't think of driders.

Spider's legs dropped away like scabs from over scars, dissipating as his blood had on the roof of the Apostolaeum. He drew in a quick breath, almost breaking his focus, but managed to continue as a thousand little cracks appeared on the carapace. He could be patient when there was a need. He wasn't the Spider that Waits for nothing.

The carapace split, almost like a chrysalis - wrong creature for that, but… The chitin melted off, meeting the same fate as the falling legs. He reared upward somewhat awkwardly, arms lifted. Two arms. Two legs remained, shifting and filling out.

He should be snapping back by now - some variety in forms was permissible, but _she _made sure there was always carapace, legs, something obviously of a spider, and the form he could take that most resembled a drow called up so many undesirable associations -

_Drider. Drider. _

_No, don't think of that!_

- that most of the time he simply assumed the shape of a particularly large specimen, sometimes adjusting for a drow's head and perhaps arms to hold his weapons, and that worked as well as anything could have.

But the pieces of spider continued to fall away until there were no more to fall, and Selvetarm grinned at the sight. At least in a dream he could do this.

He grinned at the dream-Revenancer as well, but she'd turned her back. She sang, warping as the bodies had. The singing voice changed, rings and veils vanished. He was looking at someone else now.

_…a convocation… return soon… do not worry… safe here…_

"I don't want to be safe." As he spoke he heard the same words, _outside _somehow and garbled through an uncoordinated tongue. He repeated himself and again came the slurring voice. His own voice.

Not-the-Revenancer, the priests' ruined bodies, Eryndlyn blurred together. He no longer had the sensation of standing, and felt his closed eyes anew. The sounds from outside were even clearer now. He stilled his tongue, hoping in that way to delay it. Delay it, because there was no stopping it. They obviously hadn't listened to him, and in spite of his attempt at a threat Selvetarm knew their failure was more likely to hurt him than them.

The requests for spells continued - diminished somewhat, but not nearly enough to finish it in that way and he supposed there wouldn't be a finish there, now. They'd run amok as he'd told them, and as a group they lived. No point in putting it off any longer. He might as well see what Arvandor had in store for him.

Selvetarm opened his eyes.


	5. Welcome Home, For the First Time

**Chapter Five: Welcome Home, For the First Time**

His first sight was night sky and a full moon.

Selvetarm blinked and wondered at the view. He wouldn't have chosen this - being on his back, like a dead spider, felt as though he was deliberately exposing himself to such a fate. In many cases, he knew, having legs against the ground was no help, but he preferred the illusory security that brought.

The half-spider form he last remembered wearing didn't take well to such positions as would allow him this sight, yet his head and back lay perfectly against… whatever he was lying on, and he felt no awkwardness from the spider half, no legs left bent above him -

Fragments of dreaming caught up with him. He stiffened, then concentrated on shifting his legs. A fourth of the responses he'd long grown to expect seemed to arrive, and they arrived differently. Two, moving stiffly but as a drow's legs would -

He braced his elbows and pushed himself upward after a few false starts, staring at what was laid out before him. Legs - _his legs! His two legs!_ - with knees in the middle and feet at the end and this was all still a dream, had to be, a very good one, maybe they _had _listened to him, or maybe he _had _figured out how to take Reverie after all-

He became aware of the weapons, sword and mace at ease in his hands and dragging in the grass. As he lifted them before him he became aware also of the shifting and clinking of chain mail, and of the silence that prevailed aside from the clinking and the spiral of his own thoughts. His head felt too light - so light he thought for one crazy moment that it was about to part company with his neck. There was none of the usual inner outcry to slaughter, no mind-voices combining to greater fury, and he realized then that it had been absent since Corellon Larethian's casting - stunned into silence, or torn away altogether.

_They were nothing but echoes. This is nothing but your echo. You still know who you are. _

"I do?" he whispered, biting down on his tongue once he spoke the last word. He thought he'd learned to control it.

_You know what is important now. You are no longer a child. You do not need to listen to your own echoes to know yourself. _

Still, the presence of this one relieved him somewhat - especially as he was certain this echo was entirely his.

He silenced it and returned to the matter of the chain mail - he knew it was his when he looked down. One wasn't supposed to sleep in armor, but he hadn't really done that, had he? All he'd done was take it with him when he woke up -  he was inexplicably sure now, looking at it, that he was awake. He'd taken the chain mail and a jacket underneath, and he saw leggings as well when he looked again. On his back or not, he wasn't Eilistraee to leave himself open like that.

Eilistraee…

He looked back up at the moon, then down at the grass surrounding him. Between that, he took in a considerable stretch of grass, the edge of what looked to be a thick wood just behind him, and a male drow seated against one of the trees, knees drawn up to his chest. Mortal, he noted, and unless he missed his guess, dead - a petitioner of Arvandor. Probably one of hers.

The petitioner ducked his head. "The Lady Eilistraee bade me take her place while she meets with the rest of the Seldarine," he rattled off. "She begs you forgive her this, as she has much pressing business elsewhere, but there have been wards placed by the First of the Seldarine himself, and-"

"Forgive her?" Selvetarm laughed. He wasn't sure which was more absurd - the thought of her actually asking for that, or the thought of his obliging her. His laughter faded as he tried to stand and found his regained limbs uncooperative in that particular venture. The petitioner's face was still averted for now, a small mercy. Quite enough to constantly appear helpless before other gods without doing so in front of a dead mortal.

"Is there anything you would ask of me?" the petitioner murmured.

He put his weapons aside for the moment and set about maneuvering his legs out of the tangle they'd collapsed into. "Leave."

"I can't do that."

"Then don't." He knew the signs - this one was not ultimately his to command, and there was no point in trying to contradict whatever orders Eilistraee had given. "Did she say when she would return?" A shake of the head. At the same time, Selvetarm got his legs into position and lay on his side, trying to recline. "Was it a random choice?"

"Your pardon?"

"For you to take her place. Or were you some great follower of hers in life?" He nearly said priest, but that wasn't likely, knowing her.

The petitioner hesitated. "I wouldn't say random, exactly. I was one of those… watching, you see, and when she saw-"

Ah. So this one had already seen him humiliated. What was a little more to accompany? It wasn't as though matters would improve on Eilistraee's return. Selvetarm turned over the rest of the way and began to maneuver toward another of the close trees.

"- I accepted," the petitioner concluded as Selvetarm reached the base of the tree. He was silent thereafter, sometimes allowing his gaze to drift up and take in Selvetarm's efforts before lowering it with far greater speed.

Selvetarm did his best to ignore the gaze and eventually levered himself up with the tree. He leaned against it, arms locked around the trunk, looking for all the world as though he were about to declare his love to it. The time for any such declaration was long past.

After several long breaths, he removed one arm and turned away somewhat, shoving his feet into the grass in hopes of improving stability. He was concentrating on his feet when the blow from behind hit him, and as he fell he saw that the petitioner had finally looked up completely, giving Selvetarm a full view of his face. The wide-eyed expression reminded him of something, but before Selvetarm could figure just what more pressing business reasserted itself.

He ended up flailing in the grass, his utterly treacherous legs now pinned beneath him. "Hey-" Pressure on the small of his back. "Hey! Calm down. It's only me." Given that he'd no idea who "only me" was, it didn't sound so calming. Then "only me"  took hold of his shoulders and lifted the pressure, proceeding to flip him onto his back and settle back down atop him. "See? Only me. Welcome back. Welcome home!"

Selvetarm stared, still trying to extricate himself. "Back?" "Only me" was another god - he could tell that much. Almost certainly one of the Seldarine. "I've never been here before."

The other god blinked. It was as though he'd taken all the green of the grass into his eyes, then returned it so intensified as to nearly blind. "Never been…? Oh, right, this is Eilistraee's place, isn't it? You wouldn't have. She hadn't had it back then. I mean _here_, in general. Arvandor."

He thought he might half-remember this one now. The green - he definitely recalled something of the green. "I've never _been-_"

"Funniest thing, I remember she said something about your son. Seems like _everyone's _headed back of late. Mebbe you're meant as a surprise?" Selvetarm stopped struggling and gaped a bit wider as it dawned on him who he'd been taken for. "There's supposed to be a meeting or summat, but I thought I might drop by first. Surprise her. Well, I've surprised _you _well enough I suppose, though you've surprised me right back and that's only fair." He blinked again, peering closer. "No need to be angry now. You know I know what your eyes mean by now, no point in trying to hide it. What's the trouble?"

* * *

"Sharess says Erevan left Brightwater not long ago," Hanali reported. "He'd been celebrating in the usual way. They know what's about over there, now. Well, it's not as though it has to be some great secret, now it's done. I suppose you've something to say, then, so far as what's about?"

Shevarash came to his feet. "You know I must."

Eilistraee had known that as well. She could expect nothing else from one whose main goal was scouring the drow from the corners of the planes. She spoke from her seated position. "I couldn't very well stow him in the Abyss. The atmosphere is hardly conducive to my purposes."

"Who said you had to stow him to begin with?" He turned around the circle of the gathered Seldarine, seeming to meet the gaze of everyone but her. He looked to Corellon last. "Nobody saw fit to tell me anything of this-"

"Naturally," Hanali interjected.

Sehanine gave her a warning look from her own seat at Corellon's side. "Please, continue."

He straightened. "I was told _nothing_, and now I am to tell my faithful that they can no longer slay drow because we _harbor their gods in Arvandor_?"

Sehanine made smoothing gestures with her hands. "Perhaps you can tell them the same thing you told them of Eilistraee and her own?"

"No. I can't. You don't mean to tell me you would vouch for _that _one as you vouch for… _her_."

"No," she said, "I don't mean."

Eilistraee unfolded her legs and stood. "_I _am the one tovouch for him. I pledged to ensure my nephew's good behavior as long as he remains in Arvandor. I pledge this once more, before all of you. There is no cause to worry-" She allowed herself a small jab. "-it is but one god, and the numbers he commands are not so large, all told. There are plenty of drow left for you and yours to slay."

"_His _good behavior. And the 'good behavior' of his drow?"

Corellon spoke then. "Consider them much the same as you would consider my daughter's, in that they are not to be killed out of hand. Violence is to be used only against violence. Eilistraee, you will inform him of this?" She nodded. He looked back to Shevarash. "I trust my daughter's word, and if it is her request and her pledge then he will stay as long as need be." Shevarash still looked unsatisfied, and she doubted anything could change that.

_Lady Eilistraee, something is-_

Eilistraee recognized the speaker and listened closely to what followed his invocation. "Erevan's arrived," she informed the gathering. "The effects of his… celebration are evident. I had better go to them."

* * *

"That," declared "only me" - Erevan Ilesere, he knew now - with a wave of his free arm, "_that _was the last time I will ever touch a wineglass, mark my words."

Eilistraee yanked back on his other arm and just barely stopped him tipping back onto Selvetarm. Selvetarm stretched out his arms and began to push himself away from the fall zone. She said, "I suppose from now on you'll drink from the bottle?"

"_Eilistraee_." He stretched out her name to ridiculous lengths. "You _wound _me, you truly do. If you insist, then. No bottles. No decanters. No wineskins. No _grapes_. Satisfied?"

"_Erevan_," she stretched back, "what have I told you about promises you can't keep? Or will you be resorting to dwarven ale?"

"No tankards, then. No barrels. No spigots. No-" He stopped, doubled over in laughter.

Selvetarm placed that laughter where he hadn't quite placed the face or the name - he had been one of those who'd laughed with Sharess, when Selvetarm was still with her. The name sounded about right, and the face, with its green eyes, was a reasonable match to what memory he had - after the initial eye contact on meeting, that one had always seemed to be looking at something just to the side or over Selvetarm's head. Selvetarm remembered wondering why he might be doing that - it had been so long ago that he hadn't yet known why one of the Seldarine wouldn't want to look at him.

"So then," Erevan was saying now, "I don't suppose you've room for another little lost god, have you?"

"Lost? This is _Arvandor_."

"Is it? I was _thinking _it looked awfully, wossname, _vegetative_ for the Abyss. Yes I was. I was thinking, that flower over there? 's not, wossname, _consistent_ with the, wossname, _aesthetics_."

Selvetarm's right hand met the hilt of his sword. He took hold of it and transferred the sword to his left hand, then reached out again with his right to grasp the haft of his mace.

"Forget I asked."

"Your will be done, my lady, I'll be forgetting any moment now - no, go on, I can find my own spot. I can't very well dash out my brains on a rock or anything. Sides, I expect you'll want some…" He gestured vaguely toward Selvetarm. "Some…"

Just what he expected she would want Selvetarm never found out for certain,  because at that moment Erevan was distracted by the petitioner, who was pressed quietly against a tree bearing witness to the goings-on. "Ah. You. I've not forgotten _that_. I'm sure I can figure your name, just give me to sunrise-" He looked up at the full moon then, and broke into another laughing fit. He was still laughing as he ambled into the wood; Selvetarm thought he heard him colliding with trees.

"Thank you," Eilistraee was telling the petitioner now. "I am sure a suitable reward-"

"This is reward enough, Lady Eilistraee."

"No," she said. "It isn't." Her eyes flicked toward Selvetarm, briefly returned to the petitioner, then flicked back - perhaps she'd noticed something in his expression, and now she spoke to him. "Do you remember something of this mortal, then? Ah… Kalannar Dhuunyl?"

_His sword broke and he wouldn't stop screaming. _"One of the traitors, wasn't he?"

His shoulders jerked, but his face showed no surprise. He set his shoulders quickly, lifted his chin. "You left me behind first."

Selvetarm would have dealt him a second death right there if he hadn't run into a muddle as to what she might do to him for killing one of her servitors. By the time he remembered that he no longer cared what she might do, Eilistraee had already spoken. Her voice was soft.  "Kalannar. Would you mind if we continued our discussion later? I will call on you when the time comes." Kalannar quickly ducked his head toward her and set off across the grass.

When he was some distance away, she turned back to Selvetarm and _moved_ - she had him lifted and wrapped between her arms before he could pull away. His limbs froze out of habit, and after a moment of frantic vacillation - during which arms and legs remained frozen, weapons dangling - he decided that trying to pull away only to go tumbling back into the grass wasn't worth the trouble at this point. She drew him toward her and put her head on his shoulder. "It's good to have you back," she said. "It's good to have you here."

He stared over her shoulder in return. His feet touched the ground and he half-stood - half, because he wasn't sure it wouldn't give out again without her holding him up.  "I told you. I _told _you not to leave me like this."

Eilistraee's arms loosened somewhat at that. She pulled back to face him, wearing that look of hers that used to bend him - not just bend him, tie him in knots. "We can't do that. We do hope you will change, but such a thing cannot be forced."

"Were you listening? It wouldn't be forced."

"Any change should come from yourself," said Eilistraee, "not the result of your soul being dismembered and reassembled by powerful enchantments. I promise you that Evergold's water is the strongest such magic we will ever employ."

He could have done without that promise.

She looked downward now and he imagined a number of strikes he might try on her in such a position, but when he considered how many would succeed the field narrowed into nonexistence. He continued to hold still. He was entirely too used to living.

"You changed back," she said, looking back to his face. "Your… old form."

"Yes. You must be _very_ _grateful_ you don't have to put up with that ugliness." He grinned at her and called back the long spider's fangs, on full display when he bared his teeth. He'd used to have them before - whenever he wanted them, whenever he felt like making his small association with spiders evident - and the feel of exercising that control again made Selvetarm grin even wider.

He remembered he'd gradually stopped taking on the spider's fangs. To please Eilistraee, as he would have refused to please anyone else. Would that he'd stopped there.

"I am grateful, certainly," she said, seemingly unruffled by their presence now. "Then, you are not? There is no need to take this shape for my sake, if you prefer another."

Of course, she knew he wouldn't prefer another. He turned away in her arms, in the direction across the grass where Kalannar-Dhuunyl-the-screaming-traitor had long vanished by now.

"Your worshippers," said Eilistraee now. "How do they fare?"

By that, she'd be truly asking how hard it would be to take them beneath her own faith, as they had been beneath _hers. _Selvetarm took quick stock, listening to how many times his name was called in battle or prayer. Diminished, but there didn't seem to be so many defections as he'd expected - certainly not as many as there had been the last time, all those centuries ago. "They're managing."


	6. Managing

**Chapter Six: Managing**

_… so, Jarrek, you've likely bit your nails to the quick waiting for me to get somewhere with all this but as it turned out, this drow, Urlryn Mlezzir he's named, was guard for a trade caravan from Lesaonar's old city to Skullport. Seems they'd picked up some slaves and were going back when Selvetarm split with that other spider god or some such thing. The priest of Selvetarm on the caravan got wind, and he got most of the guards together. They killed all the followers of that other spider god on the caravan - thing is, their priest ended up killed too. Which left them in something of a bind, seeing as the transport was pretty much a wreck and they probably couldn't get back to their city. Not that they really wanted to go back. _

_Here, it seems the magic skulls'll stop other drow just up and killing them in the name of the other spider god, or in the name of the other gods they've got - I suppose they're good for _something_. But the skulls probably wouldn't stop the lot of them just up and disappearing, that is if they hadn't any of the right friends. Mlezzir said the same thing might happen to Lesaonar, tried to go all you-need-us-and-we-just-might-need-you. Lesaonar laughed at him. _

_So the drow argued round in circles, according to Urlryn, and then he went off into Skullport to have a drink, get in a fight, that sort of thing. Well, there, he heard things about another priest of Selvetarm running about of late - not sure why "of late" seeing as Lesaonar said he'd been here for years - and guess who that came out to be? So now Lesaonar's in charge of a bunch of other Selvetarm worshippers, not to mention the slaves. _

_I've just been to the rest of the Company, and we've set up a talk. Eshail is still game for trying to be an Ilmatari, and I can't say I fault her for it. Meanwhile, Gannisley wants to be a Tyrant - punish fell creatures, deal out justice and all that. I'd say he wants to be a Bloodbrother except for he wanted an ambush, and except for who he _wanted _to ambush. _

_Oh, and for the record, Lesaonar's real family name isn't Jhalavar. It's Pharn. Had to ask him how to spell that. _

_Daron_

* * *

"What of the slaves?"

Eshail Helder's tone was convincingly casual, but from earlier observation of her views Lesaonar knew it for a lie. He considered his response. "We're feeding them. Watering them. There aren't any who need healing. We aren't throwing them into pits to fight to the death." Her eyes narrowed, and he regretted the specificity of his last comment. It must have sounded as though he were doing just that and mocking her with the denial.

"Sounds well enough," said Barakat, sitting beside her at the inn room's table. "Ilmater's mercy, there's no need to _harp _on it."

"You would say that." She smiled as she looked to him. Her voice, though acerbic, seemed to lighten as she continued. "Must be absolute luxury in Calimshan, food and water and not having to fight to the death."

Gannisley rolled his eyes upward, one of them darkened with bruising, and half-smiled - the first expression of anything resembling humor Lesaonar had seen on his face this meeting. Daron, seated on a bed, smiled as well. It was a different one than he'd seen on her with impending fights.

Barakat laughed as he adjusted the sleeve of his robe. "We simply understand that we can't hold barbarians to our high slave-keeping standards. Hence, well enough."

She laughed back, and Lesaonar considered the odd exchange. On further examination, it seemed little more than the warrior and the mage dancing around each other in well-practiced patterns, tapping so lightly with their verbal weapons that he would be hard put even to call it sparring. In Eryndlyn, there would have been stabs - verbal or otherwise - alongside such words.

Then there was the familiar but no less baffling matter of gods. He'd heard the other three in Daron's group call on close to a score of them besides Ilmater, and Daron was far more tolerant of it than any Eryndlyr priest would have been. He'd almost asked her about it earlier, but figured out in time that it was simply the usual way with humans. Their gods had their rivalries, to be sure, but he gathered that few were as offended by invocation or propitiation of others in pertinent situations.

Daron had explained that to him, again with far greater openness than he was accustomed to - he could've and had indeed discovered fairly neutral readings on such matters, particularly easy to find in Eryndlyn, but you wouldn't find them with _clerics_. She spoke about how they would appease the goddess of the surface sea when making voyages, or give thanks to the god of craftwork when they forged a fine sword.

Lesaonar was male, certainly, but he wouldn't have given token prayer to Vhaeraun even before he'd been called to Selvetarm's clergy - he supposed some kind of analogy could be drawn with the requisite prayer to the Spider Queen, but in the end he hadn't even done that.

"Are you listening?" Eshail's voice was acerbic still, but the lightness had departed. This was no tap from a wooden blade. Before he could reply, she went on, "At least listen to _this_." She slammed a bag on the table between them, pulling it open to display gems sparkling in the lamplight. "Look at _this_." He considered not looking, on general principle. "Barakat's been to the market-" On cue, Barakat produced a stack of papers. "-and he's got the going rates. We'll pay those. I doubt they'll be as much use to you here as they would've been in, ah-"

"Eryndlyn," said Daron, sorting through her own paper sheaf.

Eshail nodded, plucking out one of the gems and holding it up. "In Eryndlyn."

Lesaonar restrained a wince as the lamplight reflected off the gem into his eye. "And what use will _you _have for them?"

"That's our business. Going rates and a quarter."

"I suppose you'll…" He grasped for the right words. "… turn them loose. I hope you've thought of a better place than here for that. Someplace on the surface."

"Yes. On the surface." She twirled the gem. Lesaonar closed his eyes in time. "Going rates and half again." Barakat tugged at her sleeve, which she snatched away. Gannisley scowled. Lesaonar wondered how he'd come by his bruised eye, and if Daron was mixed up in it anywhere. Could be she'd instigated another brawl in his absence.

"I'll have to discuss that with the others," he said at last. _The others_. He had _others _now. "Once the price is totaled up you may want to rethink your offer, but until then… What of these other drow I've been told of? I assume they aren't Urlryn's lot."

"You assume right," said Barakat, putting away the papers. "You're from the area - you know of a temple just out of the city? The Dance, the Stroll, some such thing."

"The Promenade." He should have expected them. These humans didn't look the sort to entertain proposals from House Tanor'Thal or the slavers of the Dark Dagger. "The followers of Eilistraee."

"Yes, that's it." Barakat paused, then continued in a speculative tone, "Say, is it true that to please their goddess they dance on the temple roof with all their-" He let out a sort of strangled yip. "My _foot - _the _bones-_"

Eshail wore an oblivious expression as convincing as her earlier casual manner and probably as real. "Ilmater's mercy, go to Daron if they did break. As he was saying, they've been asking us to take on a job. They're asking for you."

Lesaonar didn't realize he'd stood, let alone that he'd moved backward, until his back fetched up against the closed door. He hefted his mace, holding it in position between him and the rest of the room - Barakat had retreated behind one of the beds with hands in casting position, Eshail was on her feet and reaching for her sword, Gannisley already had a dagger in hand, and Daron-

"That wasn't any way to put it. Everyone. _Put away the sharp objects._ And your hands, Barakat. And your mace, Lesaonar."

Gannisley swung round to face her, mouth hanging open. Lesaonar lowered the mace halfway, and he would have silently derided Gannisley if he didn't suspect that he had a similar expression. Eshail let her hand drop, while Barakat put his behind his back; that pair seemed far less taken aback.

"This isn't cause for a fight," said Daron, still sitting on the bed. "Not over something stupid like this. These… Eilistraee drow aren't asking for you as in your head on a pike, and we wouldn't do it for them if they _did _ask. _Would _we?"

"We wouldn't," said Eshail.

Barakat nodded fervently. "Certainly not."

"Well, if _you _think there's no reason…" Gannisley put away the dagger. "Then, I suppose there really isn't one -" He rubbed at his bruises. "Tymora, since when did there have to be a _reason_ for you?"

"Since it would mean having it out with a shield companion over a thing like that. Lesaonar, I'm trying to take _your _part here-" He lowered the mace the rest of the way, then clipped it back to his belt. "This isn't avoiding battle, Gannisley." Lesaonar wondered if Gannisley was the only one she was trying to convince. "It's _not _having a stupid fight over _absolutely nothing_."

"You haven't been with the Company that long," Eshail told Gannisley. "You wouldn't know the… finer points of that. Well, there's one misunderstanding gone." To Lesaonar, "Sorry about the other one. They just want a meeting. Though, come to think of it, that doesn't rule out theirwanting your head after all, when it all shakes out. Isn't that right?" Lesaonar nodded. "But they didn't _say _they wanted your head, is the thing. What they say they want is a meeting. I gather it's a godly matter."

* * *

"Nadal?" Female by the sound of it.

"Hmm?" This one male.

"Do you think this is where the high priests got their blood? Down here?"

Paedriel's eyes had closed at some point, and he'd proceeded to go windwalking. He'd wafted his way up and out, wispy as a cloud. He wondered briefly what drow were doing in the clouds, but decided not to think too much on it. He could do interpretation after he had to wake up.

"Could be," said Nadal. Or was it a title? _The _Nadal, _a _Nadal? "Could be. Don't suppose either of us wants to imagine them slicing up thralls for it."

"Ought we give it a regenerative now? Doesn't look like it needs one. The Myrahel bitch didn't have _that _long with him."

"Doesn't need, doesn't get. Looks like the princess stayed her hand while she was in here - empathy pangs, mayhap?"

They both laughed. The drow woman said, "Might be they'll let her make up for that, do you think?"

Clouds, birds, breezes.

"Micarlin, give them some credit for creativity." The metal vanished from left wrist, right wrist. "There's got to be a better way to be rid of a faerie than calling on a priestess of Lolth."

"Right. Right." Right ankle, left ankle. Was he supposed to move now? Birds, breezes, clouds. "I suppose so far as the Vretenous we'd do better calling on the Truth of the Seeker." She audibly sucked in breath, exhaled still louder. "The Truth of the Seeker. Oh, _Selvetarm_."

Drifting down now, pretending to be an avariel. High Forest. High Moor. A whispered-of city of hope.

"Selvetarm," said Nadal. "Right. Selvetarm. If I were to bet on who'd stand by Lolth and go on with vivisecting the heretics, stakes commensurate to probability… well. It's a good job I didn't bet on it, is all I can say."

* * *

Tsabrak was on his feet. "Throw the faerie a blade. Let's see if he-"

Another of the spiderswords, without looking at him, said, "Don't be an idiot."

"I say we just sacrifice it," said a Grand Temple judicator. "Cut out the heart. That's what it was here _for_."

"How do we do that? The old spider-daggers and so on? We've sworn that off, haven't we?"

"We haven't sworn off spiders. The Truth of the Seeker can still do his." The Truth of the Seeker, notable in his absence. "So can Jhalavar." A gesture toward the young priestess in question who, report given, continued to stand in the doorway with her spellsinger comrade.

"A battle-death would be a better sacrifice, wouldn't it?" This speaker inclined his head toward Tsabrak, who recognized him as Master Chaszyrd Thenduk - not a priest, but a combat instructor who'd often given his spare time to the Grand Temple, embracing Selvetarm's battle frenzy and the Spider Queen's love of chance. He was often called Crazy Chaszyrd, both in and out of his earshot, and he appeared to relish the epithet.

When Tsabrak was in training at the Grand Temple, novices in service of both Lolth and Selvetarm had whispered that Master Chaszyrd was compiling a secret list of everyone who called him crazy to his face, in preparation for slaughtering them all in the future. Tsabrak himself had never addressed him as such - he was a fine one to toss such a descriptor about, and he was not entirely disbelieving of the whispers.

"Selvetarm smiles on a death in battle against overwhelming odds," said the same spidersword who'd called Tsabrak an idiot, "not a death in battle against a chit of a faerie priest waving a knife."

"What kind of proper warrior," Chaszyrd said, "could die to a chit of a faerie priest anyway?"

Someone else was on his feet, hands pressed on the octagonal marble table. He looked about Tsabrak's age, and was probably also one of the less-powerful Selvetargtlin in the room - Jhalavar and the spellsinger excepted. "We have spells. Couldn't we _ask_?" One of the senior priests quickly swung on him, and he made a visible effort not to duck.

"There's been no response for more… critical matters," Adinirahc cut in, lifting a hand. "It's doubtful he would pay much mind to this one. You wouldn't know that, I take it." The younger Selvetargtlin hurriedly retook his seat.

The priestesses of Lolth had used this room for private conference, and those who'd known of it apparently thought it a suitable place for similar goings-on once the specific wards were undone and someone used his mace on the ubiquitous statue of the Spider Queen . Now the room contained most of the upper echelons of the Selvetargtlin, judged as such by the strength of their spells, their rank in the clergy, or - failing that - their raw martial prowess. Tsabrak was relatively low on the scale, but at least he was on it and inside.

_Selvetarm, please let me not make a crock of _this _one as well. _

At least he was discreetly out of that particular muddle, in a way Vuzlyn certainly hadn't expected. Tsabrak wondered, idly, where he'd gotten to. For that matter, where had Filfaeregot to? Knowing her, he guessed she would have run back to the Grand Temple, but that was of course was out.

Tsabrak realized he was still standing, and took his seat as well.

He was out of that. Unless - and he gripped the edge of the table - they asked him to retake command out there.

They wouldn't, would they? House Chelanghym had been designed for defensibility, and was still usable to that end even if it had been turned into a deathtrap in the Silence. And who'd know its tricks better? No - they wouldn't do that. If he hadn't had the forethought to take quiet Brornal with him to the barracks, he could never have brought them the House. He knew that from the way the people in the barracks stared at him. He wasn't blind - it was just that he hadn't looked close enough at them, nor at himself. Not before this.

Adinirahc and even Crazy Chaszyrd knew him better than Filfaere, surely too well to think he could do that. Surely…

"Interesting," said Adinirahc. "That does bear consideration, Chaszyrd. There _is _the matter of proper equipment. And then there's the question of who will have the privilege. Have you further suggestion as to that?"

* * *

He'd made his arguments on Daron's level. "You know warriors have to do some things on their own," he told her. "Shield companionship has nothing to do with it," he told her. What he didn't tell her was, "I can't be as though I can't go anywhere without a human propping me up."

The Selvetargtlin had taken three rooms in a cheap inn. The largest was for the slaves, and Lesaonar stopped there to toss them a sack of pastries purchased at Eshail's expense. Once she'd counted out the coin for it, she'd given him a look that would have had him quailing if she'd been drow. But she wasn't drow, and in lieu of that she'd gone so far as to ask Daron to use a spell of lie detection on him when he returned.

"You want to spend a spell to find out whether or not I gave them some _tarts_?" he'd asked. "If you're so worried why don't you just give it to them yourself, when you've got them?" Daron had much the same reaction, while Barakat snickered. She conceded the point.

"Compliments of Eshail Helder," he told the slaves now. "Remember it. There may be a test."

The next two rooms were for the use of the eleven Selvetargtlin, but they gathered in one for the discussion, shoved bedrolls and lockboxes to the wall, and sat atop the heaps packed together nearly as much as the slaves. There proved to be little dispute over the first proposal, and someone went to dig up the bills of sale. That done, he proceeded to the second piece of news.

He paused when the expected muttering started. "Didn't you say we needed allies?"

"They _aren't _allies," said Urlryn. At some point, it had been silently decided that he would speak for them as he had first spoken to Lesaonar in the Skullport tavern. He seemed to be the strongest of the group aside from Lesaonar, but not particularly used to the idea of being such - those he was used to having above him had probably died in the revolt.

"Potential allies."

"Would you call the Vhaeraunites potential allies?"

"The Vhaeraunites haven't asked for a meeting, have they?"

"Perhaps they're giving us more credit for intelligence. It's a child's ploy. Get the leader in a room and-" He sliced a hand across his throat. "Who'd fall for that?"

"Not me," said Lesaonar. "I'm not going to stroll in dumb as an orc and get my head chopped by one of their jumping swords, if that's what you're thinking."

"No, you're just going to stroll in dumb as a _human_. You've certainly more regard for them than for your own." Lesaonar heard more than one intake of breath.

He decided in favor of flat fact. "My own died in the Undermountain."

Urlryn blinked, then groaned. "And now you're looking to join them."

"Nobody said you had to come along. They said nothing about the rest of you."

"It's not about _that_," said Urlryn. "I've not gone through all this trouble and actually lowered myself to that human's level just for you to get killed in a stupid thing like this."

"I speak of one meeting and you're already figuring out how to best cremate me." 

"No. Cremation is uncalled for. If there's a body, we'll sell it to a zombie maker."

"It could be a child's ploy, yes. They _could _mean to kill me. Most everyone in Skullport _could_ mean to. We're not exactly strangers to alliance, if you recall."

"You were thrown out of Eryndlyn because you wouldn't hold with alliance. If you recall." _And we were right in it, _Lesaonar thought, not nearly as smugly as he might have imagined himself doing. _We were ahead of our time._ "What, now you think we should sell ourselves to the Eilistraeens in replacement?"

"It's different now," said Lesaonar. "They can't very well throw us out of Skullport. Selling ourselves? If that's how you'd like to put it, why shouldn't we sell ourselves dearly? Take bids?"

"Take bids from our enemies?"

"From the Spider Queen's enemy. What objections to them are ours? What objections are Selvetarm's?"

"You're the priest," said Urlryn, somewhat milder now. "You tell us."

He nodded. "I'll ask for a divination next cycle-"

"Not a divination. Too unreliable. They could have gotten together and fed it whatever tale they liked. I've seen it," Urlryn added. "She didn't listen to the scouts when she had her Lolth-given spell to tell her different, and she got thrown into a pit full of slimes with her tongue cut out and her hands chopped off."

Lesaonar doubted he'd find a pit full of slimes at the Promenade, but he understood the rest well enough. He knew Daron had brushed off such objections when the rest of her group half-brought up her method of finding Lesaonar, but she was right in that nobody could imagine who might think it worth the trouble to orchestrate such an apparent result. The Eilistraeens, meanwhile, just might think Lesaonar worth the trouble - especially given recent shifts. "No divinations, then. Have you an alternative?"

Urlryn walked to one of the walls, shooing away the occupants as he moved, and picked up one of the boxes. "Baragh said she kept a scroll of communion in here somewhere," he said, carrying it back. "In case of urgent questions of doctrine."

Baragh, he knew, was the priest of Selvetarm before him - the dead priest that, for them, necessitated his presence. "And you'll trust me to tell you the truth about the answers?"

"I trust you to pay attention to the answers."

"Wards?"

"Probably. Have you got a dispeller ready?"

He nodded and took the box from Urlryn. Examination turned up a glyph traced onto the lid, easily taken care of. There turned out be a number of loose scrolls inside, not to mention pots of incense, an athame, and other items that could be used to toss together a ritual to the Spider Queen. Lesaonar wondered how many of those items he could appropriate - he'd no particular objection to spider motifs.

The pertinent scroll was in its own small pouch on the inside of the lid, carefully labeled in High Drow. He unrolled it and began to scrutinize the runes. "I don't suppose you know if this will end up connecting me to Lolth instead? Considering the previous owner?"

"You're the priest."

"This particular question never really came up." The runes weren't so much help with answering it, either. He couldn't cast such a powerful spell normally, and he could tell activating this one wouldn't be a matter of rattling it off and watching the runes dissolve, but if he kept focused he should have a reasonable chance at it.

Lesaonar waved a hand, beckoning everyone back, then seated himself and pressed that hand to his holy symbol while the other held the scroll open. He began slowly, holding the syllables on his tongue and testing the weight of them before release. As he progressed, he dared read them somewhat faster; they seemed to link together now, each one spoken pulling forth another to take its place.

Several times he forced himself to slow and intone the next few with especial care. He had to remember that he'd no reason to proceed with such audacity as he was tempted to. Do that and he'd tangle up his syllables; do that and he might well end up a smear on the floor - or, less dramatically, physically intact but with the contents of the scroll wasted…

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES: In case you were wondering, I eventually meant for it to have some kind of happy ending.

Well, in any case, I had fun writing this for a while, and I hope it brought some of you similar enjoyment.


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